Pajiba Blockbusters
Suspiria / Ranylt Richildis
“These are the Sorrows, and they are three in number … The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces …The second sisters is called Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals … But the third sister … Hush! whisper whilst we talk of her … Her name is Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness”… Thomas de Quincey, Suspiria de Profundis (1849)
It’s not surprising that the opium-addled imagery of Thomas de Quincey lies behind Suspiria (1977), the Italian art-horror masterpiece famous for its surreal pictures and sounds. De Quincey’s autobiographical account of Victorian drug addiction, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and its follow-up, Suspiria de Profundis, helped to popularize “dream-painting”, a very purple, very hallucinatory prose style that explores myth, torment, and the utter confounding of logic. Dream-painting is the perfect vehicle for the horror genre and, thanks to H.P. Lovecraft and other beloved whackjobs, it’s become inseparably linked to representations of fear, madness and the supernatural. The link works on film, too; with its images of high physical and emotional anguish, Suspiria dream-paints something very close to the ecstatic nightmares of opium addiction chronicled by De Quincey and fellow addicts S.T. Coleridge and Wilkie Collins.
1849 takes us too far back. Let’s jump ahead to 1994, when the Internet was a novel household toy and Usenet was creating its own legion of addicts, and opening up a world of fandom to isolated enthusiasts. I was just starting to test the filmbuff waters, and the good folks at some rec.arts.movies.something or other were happy to share wisdom and recommend titles. In a thread devoted to horror movies with true atmosphere and teeth enough to frighten, the name Suspiria kept coming up; since I’d been raised from a sprat on fright flicks (my father took me to see Poltergeist when it hit theaters — I was all of eleven), I’d lost my ability to feel a horror movie and desperately wanted to rediscover the thrill. The evocative title intrigued me as much as the promises I read in the newsgroup about the movie’s impact. I scored a copy (no mean achievement in the days before DVD and mass internet retailing) and watched it alone in my apartment with the lights out. It worked. I was injected with new levels of affect and awe, and I goosepimpled nicely. I’d had no idea, until Suspiria, that a movie could look or sound like that; the film rolled over me like waves, and I’ve been an apologist for Italian genre cinema ever since. I’d call that impact, at some level, and I owe my first-born to Dario Argento and those kindly Usenetters for the hours of pleasure they opened up for me.
Sure, Suspiria has its flaws, and calling it a Masterpiece might rob me of film cred, for whatever that’s worth. I wouldn’t even say it’s Argento’s best film; Deep Red and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage are better directed, in a technical sense, and have withstood passing decades and fashions with more poise. Suspiria was recently shown in a Fiction of Horror class at my university, and the snapperheads had the temerity to laugh at it. While it saddens me that bad dubbing and out-of-date special effects are apparently enough nowadays to disgrace an entire film, I understand how Suspiria can come off a little cheddar to those who haven’t trained themselves to “hear” past Cinecittà sound editing. Dubbing always makes the acting look worse than it really is, but dubbing is par for the course when it comes to older Italian genre cinema; no pure, undubbed version of Suspiria exists in any language, as it was shot without sound — each actor speaking her lines in her mother-tongue — and overdubbed in post-production. Other complaints: the plot is almost naked, it’s so thin, and it seems to leave a trail of loose ends and unconnected dots. Characters seem either to under- or overreact to provocation. It also happens that the particular visual stylization, or the lunatic Goblin soundtrack, turn some viewers off at a superficial level — that is, the look and sound of Suspiria just might not be someone’s bag, and in a film that depends on look and sound to work its magic, its aesthetic has to be able to enchant.
According to Argento scholar Maitland McDonagh, it was Daria Nicolodi — actor, screenwriter, and one-time Argento mate — who brought the story’s outline to the project; her grandmother had passed down memories of a boarding school whose faculty supposedly dabbled in the occult. Suspiria’s witch premise was conflated with Argento’s own desire to create a sort of nightmarish fairy tale on film — something supernatural that departed from the procedural world of the giallo. While it’s Argento’s second “Mothers” film, Inferno (1980), that directly addresses De Quincey’s idea of the Three Sorrows (an old alchemist’s book describes the “legend” and the soundtrack rings with it), Suspiria inaugurated the trilogy which Argento has only recently completed; North American release dates for The Third Mother keep scrambling, but it’s looking like June. But if Suspiria’s plot is accused of being simple or barely there, it’s doubtful such an accusation troubles Argento, whose film is built on the skeletal back of the folktale (he’s cited Snow White as inspiration). The basic structure is all Grimm: a heroine leaves home, disobeys injunctions, discovers magical properties, and finds herself on a sort of quest. One of the male students is the academy’s bullied Cinderella, earning his way as errand-boy to the staff. The doomed Pat runs through the woods in a reddish coat with a figurative wolf on her trail. A narrator foreshadows these motifs as Suspiria opens in the modern Freiburg airport — his hearth voice speaks a few familiar lines of There was once in order to establish the movie’s fairy-tale influence, then retreats and lets events unspool in a city that borders on the storybook Black Forest.
Events go something like this: Suzy (Jessica Harper) is an American ballet student who arrives in Germany on a storm-tossed night, witnesses a girl fleeing her new dance academy, learns the girl was torn apart by a murderer later that very evening and, with the help of another student (Stefania Cassini) and an occult specialist (Udo Kier), uncovers evidence of a malignant coven of witches who instruct ballet by day and chant intonations by night. Naturally these witches are behind the death of the fleeing student and her friend, the savaging of the academy’s pianist, Suzy’s dizzy spells, and other moments of blight and weirdness. If the art design seems a little skewed towards bizarre, and if the narrative thread has all the logic of a fever dream, attentive viewers will pick up on Argento’s deliberate warnings in the film’s first moments: Suzy’s dance academy is located on Escherstrasse, a street name emphasized in the taxi through repetition as Suzy and the driver try to make themselves understood. I have a hard time believing this street name is random; “Escher Street,” in the context of a dream-painted film, conjures up the cocked, illusory images of M.C. Escher — and with that we find ourselves not only inside a fairy tale but in a very unstable sort of dream. Objects come into the foreground, take on significance, then vanish completely (such as a unique lighter obsessed over by the academy’s sinister manservant). In Suspiria, the advance/retreat of a sign is more than a commonplace red-herring or (as some argue) poor continuity — it’s a reflection of the way our own dreams work their non sequiturs: people do over- or underreact to events (especially Suzy, Olga, the blind pianist, and Alida Valli’s iron-fisted Miss Tanner), and people and things appear, disappear and are casually replaced by new people or things. Facts slip and slide, and time is anything but concrete. You can’t enter a building on Escher Street and expect your narrative to be wrapped tightly in workaday hospital-corners, especially when the main character is being pumped full of what might be laudanum every night before bed (the spiked wine, the De Quincey allusions, and Suzy’s symptomatic drowsiness suggest as much, but like everything else in Suspiria, the point is we can never be sure one way or the other).
The movie is as famous for its production design and soundtrack as it is for its outrageous violence; these three elements are structurally inseparable and transform the dream into a nightmare. Sight, sound and murder complement and augment each other so craftily that together they’ve earned Suspiria its Masterpiece credentials (in the art-horror category, if not beyond it). Argento decorates his work with unsettling tableaux — Albert the grotesque Dutch-Boy, or the Rosemary’s Baby “kindness” of smothering caretakers — but this is just veneer lacquered over the supports Argento has moulded improbably from insubstantial music and image. Raised in Verdi country and familiar with the intense bursting of aria out of action, many Italian filmmakers use music operatically — chords mutiny out of stillness and, filtered through Goblin’s proto-symphonic metal, a lullaby becomes a growling carol that shadows Suzy through the peacock-blue rooms and poppy-red halls of the academy. Suspiria is an archetype of brazen lighting design and gel-work, and the film’s saturated colors were deliberately made even more hectic in post-production; the lurid violence is surrounded by lurid hues, and when your eye isn’t being led across the screen by the colors, it’s being fixed in place by the astonishing interiors of apartment lobbies and schools, or the William Morris textiles in Olga’s flat. Argento has, in effect, distilled the beauty of art nouveau into cinematic eye-candy, and to this day I want one of those organic tulip-topped doorways in my home, and a study painted like Madame Blanc’s floral office.
Matthew Barney could be running an LSD drip and a server’s worth of CGI effects — no Suspiria remake can reproduce the phosphorescent uncanniness of Argento’s dream-painted dance academy. Suspiria’s wonder is amber-caught in a specific time, place, and set of aesthetic preferences, and any remake (rumors have churned for a decade) is faced with imitating the inimitable on a framework as gossamer as a notion: ballet school, witches, go! Anything could happen and still might (if the most recent round of talks come to anything), but all the razor wire, maggots and possessed dogs in the world can’t manufacture another Suspiria. Any film, as a cultural product, can only really be made once, of course, but Suspiria somehow seems to be even less reproducible than other movies. Like Eraserhead or “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, this is the kind of artwork that was plucked out of an imagination that barely dared show itself. Argento’s faux-opium trip is indeed from the depths, as De Quincey’s title suggests, and slimed with a personal residue that gives it its signature mood and glimmer. Masterpiece or not, Suspiria possesses that particular aura of something original and iconic, and any remake will look as counterfeit as a Mona Lisa postcard lying in a damp street three blocks over from the Louvre; it’s of so little consequence, it’s not even worth worrying about. It will be a completely separate film.
Ranylt Richildis lives in Ottawa, Canada. She can usually be found sneezing in college libraries or dropping chalk in lecture halls, but she’s somehow managed to squeeze in a film or two a day for the last decade.
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Comments
I just watched this last night. I don't think the name Escherstrasse is a coincidence. The friend's bathroom in the first death scene has an Escher fish/bird wallpaper design. Definetely a hint.
Posted by: s. pisaster at March 27, 2008 12:34 PM
Wow--you saw a lot more in the movie than I did. My reaction was essentially "wut . . . the hell?", then "christ--this movie has been playing for about 85 years," followed by "I'm never trusting my friend's recommendations about movies again."
Posted by: llism at March 27, 2008 12:56 PM
I wonder how many times Ranylt opened her ever-present thesaurus during this review. Is she a freshman English student? The whole thing smacks of someone trying WAY too hard to be considered intellectual. Atrocious.
Posted by: Pete at March 27, 2008 1:22 PM
Three comments in and already registering two retards. Fiddlesticks.
Posted by: Freddy at March 27, 2008 1:41 PM
Why are people always accusing Ranylt of being overly wordy and "trying WAY too hard to be considered intellectual"? I seriously don't get it. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity, and not just to be a pill.
Ranylt's reviews have never struck me as being weighted with awkward, showy wording or unnecessary prose that doesn't flow. Her writing is very lyrical, and if that's not a style you appreciate, well bully for you but it makes no sense to accuse her of using a thesaurus as a crutch. Her language never seems stuffed in for the sake of brandishing words as bonus points. Possessing an expansive vocabulary is not a flaw, and making use of it is certainly not a fault. I don't mean to be insulting, but if her language is above someone's level, well, their shortcomings are not her problem.
Posted by: Sarina at March 27, 2008 1:41 PM
Can we stop punishing Ranylt for having a decent vocabulary? It seems to happen with every damn review of hers. It's her writing style, not a need to flaunt her intelligence.
On topic, haven't seen this, need to remedy that ASAP.
Posted by: Julie at March 27, 2008 1:48 PM
Ranylt is definitely one of my preferred reviewers on this site.
I guess that makes me a freshman English student thesaurus toting intellectual poser.
This movie is now on my must-see list. If only for the amazing set design.
Posted by: Electric Monk at March 27, 2008 1:49 PM
Sorry, Freddy, what is it that makes a "retard," exactly? Commenting about a scene in a movie, not liking a movie, or not liking someone's writing style? I just want to make sure I'm clear so I know where to put the drool cup.
Posted by: llism at March 27, 2008 1:52 PM
Pete, prepare to get shat on. hard.
Posted by: Alex at March 27, 2008 1:53 PM
I don't think this review is overly wordy, at leaqst not for Ranylt-- but it doesn't say what I want a review to say. It's muddy and unclear and takes far too long to really start talking about wha the movie is *about*. I'm still not sure I know.
Posted by: kate the great at March 27, 2008 1:59 PM
For the record, I think Ranylt's style is lovely, and her word choices are very organic to her writing voice. It's nothing like Freshman English students, whose style is generally horribly obvious and clunky, along the lines of "Jack and Jill went up the PRECIPICE to fetch a CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER of OXYGENATED LIQUID."
Posted by: llism at March 27, 2008 1:59 PM
I second (third? fourth? "n"th?) the Ranylt defense. I have never found her reviews to be overly wordy or presumptous or the like. There ARE those types of writers out there, to be sure. But their writing tends to loose its cohesion afer a while, as their focus is on trying to cram as many big words in their sentences and not on the point they are actaully trying to make.
Ranylt's reviews never struck me as that type. They flow, make valid relative points and give a great overview of the movie in question.
If we a girl prone to horror, this would be added to my queue, but as the chessest horror flicks leave me wimpering in the corner, I will be steering clear, great review
Posted by: Bethy at March 27, 2008 2:06 PM
I enjoyed this review much more than I enjoyed the film.
I guess I just can't get into Argento.
Posted by: Jerce at March 27, 2008 2:06 PM
if I WERE a girl prone to horror...
damnit, the tea is wearing off, time for another cup!
Posted by: Bethy at March 27, 2008 2:08 PM
My guess is that there are a couple of very digruntled students out there who can't forgive Ranylt for giving them a C- in some class (even though she was probably being generous), so they google her name, find out where she spends her leisure time, and continue with their C- level writing here.
Whatever, maybe hanging out in Pajiba for a while will actually teach them how to construct a sentence and they may rise to a C+ some day.
And now to the review....
I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't seen this when it clearly has all the elements I relish in horror. I had no idea there was so much Grimm influence in it. With a little luck, the trusty Netflix steeds will get this to me by the weekend.
Posted by: PaddyDog at March 27, 2008 2:15 PM
Argento has, in effect, distilled the beauty of art nouveau into cinematic eye-candy, and to this day I want one of those organic tulip-topped doorways in my home, and a study painted like Madame Blanc's floral office.
I have to say I like Ranylt's wonderfully descriptive style as well. The passage above especially made me wish the review came with pictures. I'm not that into horror movies but I love stylish sets and Art Nouveau. The Germans have their Jugendstil and they did it really well and I wondered whether the tulips were more Jugend or more Art Deco.
Posted by: AHA at March 27, 2008 2:16 PM
"...the trusty Netflix steeds..."
Hahaha Paddy! Giddyup horsey! Bring me my movie!
Posted by: Sarina at March 27, 2008 2:18 PM
Man, I love this movie in all its dated glory. I'd never before made the connection between it and dream-painting, but it makes perfect sense. I may have to force Mr. Pink into watching this one thereby destroying all my good will for picking out "Rescue Dawn" and "The Lives of Others">
Is it just me or does the header picture look a little like a deranged, blood spattered Tina Fey?
Posted by: Alabamapink at March 27, 2008 2:18 PM
Freshman English student? *smirk* Not likely. Ranylt writes with the fluid (and easily understood, might I add) ease that only having a brain like a thesaurus is able to do.
And I believe the review was trying to dance around spoiling the movie for you, Kate, should you want to see it. The plot is a thin one.
Oh and llism - HAHA. Perfect example of the FE student.
Posted by: Goldie at March 27, 2008 2:21 PM
I second that Electric Monk! Ranylt is hands down my favorite reviewer on this site. She is intelligent, and approaches the movies she reviews in an intelligent way.
For someone who is put off by her so-called "wordiness," here's a thought...
DON'T FUCKING READ HER REVIEWS!! The main page lists the author, so save us all the agony of your stupidity, and avoid her reviews.
Posted by: KatyBelle at March 27, 2008 2:23 PM
Fantastic review, Ranylt. As this movie clearly holds a revered place in both our hearts, I appreciate every thoughtful word.
Posted by: Amanda H. at March 27, 2008 2:24 PM
I definitely agree that the movie isn't perfect; sometimes the acting was cringe-worthy, and the ending was a little strange. Suspiria is awesome mainly for aesthetic reasons, and I'm also pretty fond of the score. The first death scene is a thing of beauty. The lighting, the colour, and all the tension and dread you feel from the moment she stands in front of that window. Love!
Posted by: Lannie at March 27, 2008 2:25 PM
Kill me if you want, but this doesn't read like a review, it's an essay. I understand it's her writing style, but it was way too long, it could have used some editing. And if she can do this without opening her thesaurus, good for her but somehow I can't find her reviews enjoyable.
Posted by: Gaby at March 27, 2008 2:30 PM
Lovely review, now I have new material to present to my bestfriend who is a horror freak. She will be absolutely delighted.
The only atrocity in this thread is that comment. Just because you don't get half the words she uses and have to bust out your dictionary regularly to understand what she is saying, by no means garners that response. Nice way to throw your insecurities out in the open.
That seriously frustrates me!!! I have friends who act the same way. Just because people use big words doesn't mean they are trying hard or intending to alienate anyone. Have you considered that maybe thats the first word that came to mind? Some people actually enjoy bigger words, and if you don't know the meaning. Why don't you take some initiative to actually look it up? It's called learning! Try it sometime, it might actually do you some good.....
Posted by: Jax at March 27, 2008 2:39 PM
LOVE Suspiria! Totally creepy movie that has made me fear all girls private schools.
And Udo Kier is in this? I'll have to look out for him when I see it again.
Posted by: Kamikaze Feminist at March 27, 2008 3:03 PM
Udo Kier is in every creepy movie.
Although sometimes he is hiding behind the curtains where you can't see him.
Posted by: Elron Hubble at March 27, 2008 3:27 PM
I'm trying to understand what grates people about Ranylt's writing style and vocabulary and I guess I kind of get it. Why use the word gossamer instead of thin - well because it's ambiguous and more nuanced. I love that! English isn't one of my primary languages and I love seeing that level of mastery in someone's expression. It might be a little self-indulgent and not to the masses, but you go girl!
You are genius in seeing layers Ranylt!
Suspiria's wonder is amber-caught in a specific time, place, and set of aesthetic preferences, and any remake (rumors have churned for a decade) is faced with imitating the inimitable on a framework as gossamer as a notion: ballet school, witches, go!
What a sentence :-)
Posted by: ScandinavianBlonde at March 27, 2008 3:52 PM
This movie gave me the only bad acid trip I ever had and I've been too afraid to watch it again ever since, even though part of me wants to (sober). I almost bought it a few Halloweens ago for my yearly horror movie fest, but the only copy the store had was some sooper-dooper extras-stuffed 10,000 disc goldplated edition. I didn't feel like spending the money when I didn't care about the extras, I just wanted the film.
Perhaps this review will give me the final push I need to get over it and hunt down a no-frills copy.
(And if Ranylt's fancy words and sentence structure make your poor wee little brain hurt, that's your problem, not hers.)
Posted by: june at March 27, 2008 4:28 PM
I am neither knocking the review nor the reviewer but I got very little out of the movie. I don't think it had anything to do with the dubbing (although I agree that it doesn't add to the picture), I think that the razor thin plot killed it for me. Give me something rather than a few cool images--the girl running off into the woods with the red hood was pretty killer but that's all there was. Oftentimes my husband and I wait to hear if people mention Suspiria when discussing the "greatest horror movies of all time" if we hear it, we discount their opinion immediately. Perhaps it's a good movie and I'm just missing it, but the greatest horror movie ever, it is not.
PS. When it was mentioned in Juno, I died a little inside because I didn't want Diablo Cody to be one of those people.
Posted by: Melina at March 27, 2008 5:04 PM
Thanks, KatyBelle and I completely agree. Don't like the style? Don't read it.
Now, there's a lot of people commenting about how this does not read like a review...
According to whose guidelines must a review follow a specific standard. Why can't we play with the genre to make more interesting? For what it's worth, I don't really like 'standard' reviews - even from this site. I much rather prefer (I am going to get all wanky now) Ranylt's impressionistic writings about film.
From what she's written, I always get a good idea of that the film will be like, but she never gives too much of the plot away.
For me, this is what a great reviewer does. They give you something else to think about and examine while you are watching a great movie.
Posted by: Electric Monk at March 27, 2008 5:51 PM
She has no style. She has a fairly simple two paragraph review inflated to excess with unnecessary adverbs. She also has, apparently, a bunch of moronic supporters who also ignored their college professors' (high school teachers? Christ, middle school T.A.s?) editorial advice in favor of writing something that they thought sounded scholarly. Defending a "style" of writing is only appropriate when the piece in question doesn't read like an unimaginative kid's attempt to meet a minimum word requirement.
Posted by: Pete at March 27, 2008 6:16 PM
I have a significant and long-standing love/hate relationship with Suspiria. The first two thirds drive me mad, head over heels in lust with the design and performances and direction, and then the final act makes me want to jump through cathedral glass onto an innocent bystander. The shift in tone is so great it taints my memory of the brilliant aspects of the film. It's a passionate relationship that never ends well, no matter how many times I revisit it.
The film has earned it's rightful place as a horror masterpiece because everything but the plot (I won't even say the screenplay, cause someone had to write those death scenes) is exemplary.
As for the students in the horror fiction class? I'd be speechless if I hadn't seen the same reaction from film and media/cinema studies students at two schools running now to films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Jezebel. For don't you know: films made before you were born are SO bad you have to laugh at them. Duh.
Posted by: Robert at March 27, 2008 6:52 PM
Pete,
Can we commend her for her content, then? If you ask me her articles are always the best researched and most informing of the entire writing staff. Not only do you learn about the film, but the genre, director, and anyone else of interesting significance.
You should thank her for teaching you something about film, and, if you actually look up the vexing words you coming across instead of skipping over them and pretending that you never read them, teaching you something about the english language as well.
then we all win!
Posted by: Some Guy at March 27, 2008 7:00 PM
How dare Ranylt use all those fancy words in her writing. What a pretentious douche. And that name, Ranylt? That name smacks of arrogance and apricot jam.
I demand, DEMAND future reviews be at 9th grade reading level, to anything more advanced is STUPID AND GAY!
Posted by: Andrew831 at March 27, 2008 7:42 PM
In fact, I think all articles should be written in text message form.
it wuld b gr8 if u culd do tht thx.
Posted by: Andrew831 at March 27, 2008 7:45 PM
Suspiria was recently shown in a Fiction of Horror class at my university, and the snapperheads had the temerity to laugh at it.
This happened in my first year film screening of Casablanca, for god's sake. I was embarrassed to be sitting in the same class as those people.
Posted by: sarahbot at March 27, 2008 8:28 PM
Hmm, it's interesting to hear about de Quincey in another context. I'm most familiar with the Opium-Eaters from past studies on Hector Berlioz. Maybe I should check out some of his other work. He's definitely got an engaging (crazed) prose style.
Is it alright to ask at which university you teach? I briefly flirted with the idea of going to Ottawa or Carleton. Then I remembered that I'm too wussy for Ottawa weather, and went somewhere else. Second-coldest national capital in the world? Zoiks. One of my sisters went to Carleton, and more than ten years later, if you ask her about it, she'll start talking about the weather.
JMB, I'm at Ottawa U. And always cold. --RR
Posted by: Jo 'Mama' Besser at March 27, 2008 8:39 PM
Jo: I'm sitting in the Carleton library right now, and believe me, coming from somebody who grew up outside Vancouver, Ottawa is not that bad. Carleton is though - I recommend not dropping the phrase "Last Chance U" around your sister.
Posted by: sarahbot at March 27, 2008 9:49 PM
sarahbot,
Oh, she's heard it, I'm sure. I have, at least. I've never really taken any of that university-bashing stuff too seriously. But I've always been lacking in the way of school spirit. Those taunts always seemed to come from people who were just trying to engage in grude-matches. I've always taken a 'get the certification and get out' approach. People seem to find a way to insult your education wherever you go. Anyway, once you've got the degree, it doesn't matter where you went.
Ottawa did seem really nice the one time I went there-eleven years ago, in June. I bought a little silver swan figurine, O.K. Computer, and a bottle of nailpolish. Colour: periwinkle.
The End.
I hope Ranylt doesn't teach at Carleton now.
Posted by: Jo 'Mama' Besser at March 27, 2008 10:43 PM
Love Argento. Giallo remains my very favorite horror movie type, and add to it Goblin, weird mother-daughterish relationships, and beautiful gore, and you've got me. I loved this review. As another true fan of Argento, you mention everything that makes me love this movie-- the saturated colors, the strange performances, the tendency of things to seem important and disappear or come out of nowhere-- it's very nice to see these things mentioned so particularly here. And I was unaware of the connection with Thomas de Quincy. I'm off to buy Suspiria now. Thank you for this review. It made my day.
Posted by: Pheagan at March 28, 2008 1:28 AM
And I prefer essays to capsule reviews-- that's why I come to Pajiba. I'd like to find out about the history behind a film and all the little particulars that add it up. Especially with reviews for movies like this-- movies that we've probably seen or will rent-- we want to read more than a plot synopsis and a judgement on the actors. The kind of reviews that are two paragraphs of need-to-know information are in the majority. Reviews that I like to read are in the minority. So, Peter, don't fuck with my reviews. I want my reviews like this, special, and they're hard to find. You can just pick up a Rolling Stone or watch Siskel and Roeper or find one of the million other reviews that strive for mediocrity.
Posted by: Pheagan at March 28, 2008 1:37 AM
Ranylt is an absolute treasure! Evocative and thought provoking, every time.
Don't let them pull you down, doll. We'll slapshot 'em with butter tarts and give them the Clockwork Orange treatment during the resulting sugar high, only we'll strap them into the library. They can run, but unless they've got a snowplow and salt, we'll smarten those hosers up yet.
Posted by: replica at March 28, 2008 4:15 AM
Max Escher? I think Ranylt is probably referring to the Dutch artist Maurits (M.E.) Escher...
You would be correct. Fixed. -- RR
Posted by: Karen at March 28, 2008 4:51 AM
Great movie, definitely has a unique style to it.
As for Ranylit and her review, I was prepared to come to her defense, but I see that many others have already beat me to it. However, I will say that Ranylit's reviews are my favorites, because I love her writing style.
Posted by: CptCrckpot at March 28, 2008 5:33 AM
I demand a rewrite of this review! And of these comments! And... of my own literary insecurities.
Bah.
RR, there's no need for me to continue to explain how I adore/envy/covet your writing style, for to do so would make me eventually cross the line into creepy stalker, and you've got enough of those.
Or something.
I demand that I rewrite this comment!
Posted by: TK at March 28, 2008 9:53 AM
Pete -
Please refer to the comment section of the following post for any and all questions regarding the majority of the commenters' feelings toward Ranylt.
http://www.pajiba.com/lions-for-lambs.htm
I would suggest, in the future, that you limit your comments to the subject at hand. Doing anything beyond that seems outside your ability to handle with any grace, much less effectiveness.
But since big words confuse you, I'll rephrase...
Peet kan haz labatamee.
Posted by: Smokin at March 28, 2008 1:46 PM
Lovecraft is "beloved"? Really? I was under the impression he was an anglophilic racist bastard who was scared of nothing as much as foreigners.
Posted by: serena at March 29, 2008 4:27 PM
Ranylt is a university prof. She isn't trying to be a douchebag by using "big words". People who think with big words, write with big words. Get over it. If it comes off like an essay to some people, well, it is a meditation on a famous horror movie. It isn't a review for the latest fare being shown at your neighbourhood cinema. The movie looks great. The colours, the architecture, the decor, are crazy. I second the love for the wallpaper in the director's office. Also, to this day I am completely in love with that horrid teenage witch Suzy stays with in the beginning. The one with the dark hair, large feline eyes, and insanely perfect body... Also, love the razor-wire scene.
Posted by: Sigh at March 29, 2008 7:26 PM
PS. When it was mentioned in Juno, I died a little inside because I didn't want Diablo Cody to be one of those people.
Excuse me while I derail the comments, but the line that Melina referenced, where Juno says that Herschell Gordon Lewis' The Wizard of Gore is "even better than Suspiria," has bothered me ever since I saw the movie.
Maybe I'm too much of a horror nerd, but to me this is like saying that The Terminator is even better than No Country for Old Men.
Both movies are ostensibly about mysterious shotgun-toting badasses indiscriminately blowing people away in an unshakeable quest to take out an assigned target, but James Cameron and the Coen brothers, are very dissimilar directors trying to accomplish very dissimilar things.
Likewise, while Lewis and Argento's movies both fit under the wider umbrella of "horror," directly comparing the two's films doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.
Posted by: Aloysius Stitches at March 29, 2008 10:32 PM
Um... Apologies for the weird spacing in the above comment. The preview looked way less wonky than what you just read.
Posted by: Aloysius Stitches at March 29, 2008 10:34 PM
I first saw Suspiria when I was a teenager, thanks to an easy-going stepmother and an unlimited video rental card. It produced in me a swoony-but-slightly-nauseated feeling that lingered for months. I acknowledge that the film has its drawbacks, but the Italian school of horror has always been more about inducing a sense-ridden state than an intellectual one, I think.
I haven't seen the movie for years, but that review brought back a little of the altered consciousness feel of watching the movie, minus the nausea, so thank you for that.
Posted by: elsworthy at March 31, 2008 10:44 AM
"the line that Melina referenced, where Juno says that Herschell Gordon Lewis' The Wizard of Gore is "even better than Suspiria," has bothered me ever since I saw the movie."
AMEN! It totally jarred me out of the movie--obviously penned by someone who'd never seen either and was just throwing around genre tags.
I first saw Suspiria on USA Up All Night when I was in junior high. The famous glass-breaking scene stayed with me ever since, although every other identifying detail (name, director) faded. When I saw the movie again 25 years later, it was like being hit on the skull with a cudgel.
Images that stick with a person for that long are what take this movie out of the realm of "good" and "bad" and camp and shlock and whatever else one can "criticize" about it. Argento makes movies composed of visuals culled from the collective unconscious. David Lynch really is the only other director who approaches (and bests, really) Argento. The man has no "suppress" switch--watch any movie where he's cast his daughter Asia for proof of that!
When I finally got a DVD player, Suspiria was the first movie I bought. Too bad, like an idiot, I loaned it to a friend who never returned it.
I want to get the iris's from the headmistress's study tattooed around my hips!
Posted by: Surly at March 31, 2008 11:56 AM
Ranylt, don't take heed to some of these idiots. Take it from someone who's followed Argento's career for decades; your essay is right on target.
Suspiria is a very good film for it's time. You have to understand, it's use of color and early surround sound was unheard of at the time and this was in the age of the movie palace theatre. Single screen theatres with humongus screens that probably equalled 10 multiplex screens.
I was a huge fan of it at one time, myself. I even had such a large collection of memoribilia that I loaned it out to be used on the Anchor Bay DVD (yep, those are my posters (well, some of them) and radio spots).
Over the years, though, "Profundo Rosso", "Tenebrae" and "Opera" have taken the place of "Suspiria" as my favorite Argentos. Actually, "Suspiria" ranks pretty low these days. "Inferno" ranks much higher with me.
Simply put, people who think "Suspiria" is Argento's greatest work simply haven't seen enough of his films or really don't enjoy his films.
He's not really a horror director or a trippy director. He's a Giallo mystery director first. He directs mysteries that are obscenely bloody which is why he (wrongly) gets thrown in wholesale with the Horror genre. He does do the occasional true horror film, but that's not really his forte'. I will say, though, I've never seen an Argento film I didn't like. Never. Not even "Phantom of the Opera", which I believe is a grossly misunderstood comedy.
Good job, Ranylt.
P.S. That Lewis v. Argento exchange from Juno bothered me, too. It's obvious that that was included as a "cred" line... oh, like every other line in that movie.
Posted by: Terry at April 2, 2008 1:46 AM
Suspiria is brilliant for ANY time. Even it's flaws are perfection, which makes no sense, much like Suspiria. I was drawn to my current home because of the Orangey-red exterior, and the door painted like the panelling in the apartment house Pat escaped to. Like Ranylt, I want a room done up Suspiria style. Hell, I want to LIVE on that set forever. I could watch this movie twice a day, every day. Good review, by the way.
Posted by: Farah at May 28, 2008 12:53 PM