Suspiria is a 2018 supernatural horror film directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, inspired by Dario Argento's 1977 Italian film of the same name. It stars Dakota Johnson as an American woman who enrolls at a prestigious dance academy in Berlin run by a coven of witches. Tilda Swinton co-stars in three roles, as the company's lead choreographer, as a male psychotherapist involved in the academy, and as the leader of the coven. Mia Goth, Elena Fokina and Chloë Grace Moretz appear in supporting roles as students, while Angela Winkler, Ingrid Caven, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk and Christine LeBoutte portray some of the academy's matrons. Jessica Harper, star of the original film, has a cameo appearance.
A remake of Suspiria was first announced in 2008 after Guadagnino had acquired the rights from the original film's writers, Argento and Daria Nicolodi. In September 2015, Guadagnino confirmed his plans to direct, describing his version as an "homage" to the original rather than a straightforward remake. A new screenplay was drafted by Kajganich, who had written Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash the year before. Kajganich set the film during the so-called "German Autumn" of 1977 to explore themes of generational guilt in that country during the Cold War. The film's other themes include motherhood, evil and the dynamics of matriarchies.
Unlike the original film, which used exaggerated colors, Guadagnino conceived the visuals in Suspiria as "winterish" and bleak, absent of primary colors. The film incorporates stylized dance sequences choreographed by Damien Jalet, which form part of its representation of witchcraft. Principal photography took place in late 2016 and early 2017 in Varese, Italy, and in Berlin. The musical score was composed by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who took inspiration from krautrock. The film is dedicated to the memories of Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, film director Jonathan Demme and Deborah Falzone.
Suspiria premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2018. It was given a limited release by Amazon Studios in Los Angeles and New York on October 26, 2018, where it grossed over $180,000 in its opening weekend, marking the highest screen-average box-office launch of the year. It was screened on October 31 in some US cities before opening in wide release on November 2, 2018. It was released in Italy on January 1, 2019.
The film was a box-office bomb and critical response was polarized; some praised the film for its visual elements and performances, while others criticized its historical-political setting as arbitrary in relation to its other themes.
Plot During the German Autumn of 1977, Susie Bannion, an American from a Mennonite family in Ohio, is admitted at the Markos Dance Academy in West Berlin. The academy is reeling from the disappearance of a student, Patricia Hingle, who vanished after telling her psychotherapist, Josef Klemperer, that the academy is controlled by a coven of witches. Journals left by Patricia in Klemperer's office detail The Three Mothers, a trio of witches who predate Christianity: Mater Suspiriorum, Mater Tenebrarum and Mater Lachrymarum. Klemperer, initially dismissive of Patricia's claims, becomes suspicious of the academy after her disappearance.
During rehearsal, a Soviet student, Olga, becomes indignant towards Madame Blanc and storms out of the studio. Olga attempts to escape with her belongings but finds herself trapped alone in a room lined with mirrors. Blanc, meanwhile, resumes the rehearsal, during which Susie performs an aggressive dance; her movements begin physically afflicting Olga, ravaging her body and damaging her organs and bones. Several of the academy's matrons drag Olga's mangled body away with large hooks. Later, the matrons hold an informal election for who is to serve as the coven's new leader. The vote is between Madame Blanc and Mother Markos, an aged and grossly disfigured witch who has long controlled the coven, and for whom the academy is named; Markos wins the popular vote. Afterwards, Miss Griffith, the most sheepish of the matrons, kills herself.
Susie befriends her classmate Sara. While investigating the disappearances of Olga and Patricia, the two realize the academy has washed all traces of them. Susie quickly climbs the ranks as Blanc's protégée, then is appointed the lead of the academy's upcoming piece, Volk. Meanwhile, Sara grows suspicious of the matrons after a meeting with Klemperer and uncovers clandestine hallways in the building where she discovers esoteric relics. Klemperer attends the performance. Immediately prior, Sara explores a passageway leading into the catacombs where she finds a heavily withering Patricia. Sara runs away but the matrons manifest holes in the floor, causing her to fall and fracture her leg. Sara emerges midway through the performance, dancing her part in a hypnotic trance, but collapses in pain before the dance ends. Blanc subsequently chastises Susie for intervening in the matrons' efforts to manipulate Sara's body.
The next day, Susie attends a celebratory dinner with the matrons. Meanwhile, Klemperer encounters Anke, his presumed-deceased wife, at his dacha in East Germany. She tells him she faked her death after fleeing the Nazis and started a new life in England. They walk together, passing through a security checkpoint into West Berlin without being noticed. Klemperer realizes the two have arrived at the Markos Academy; before his eyes, he realizes Anke is, in fact, Miss Huller, one of the matrons, and that he has been lured there to bear witness to an impending witches' sabbath.
After the dinner, Susie returns to the academy and is led to a chamber where Blanc and the other matrons await with Mother Markos, for whom Susie is to be a new vessel, and an incapacitated Klemperer. Susie renounces her own mother, who simultaneously succumbs on her deathbed in Ohio. The matrons disembowel Sara to begin the sabbath, but Blanc senses a discrepancy. Hesitant to proceed, she is nearly decapitated by Markos. As Blanc bleeds profusely, Susie reveals that she, not Markos, is Mother Suspiriorum; she is there to claim the academy and eradicate Markos. Susie summons Death, killing Markos and her most faithful matrons, sparing only those devoted to Blanc. Patricia, Olga, and Sara, each physically ravaged, plead to die, which Susie grants them.
The following day, the academy resumes operations as usual. Miss Vendegast discovers Blanc on the verge of death, and an announcement is made to the students that Blanc has left the academy. Meanwhile, Klemperer, who was spared and now confined to his bed, is met by Susie at his home. She apologizes for her coven's actions and recounts to him the fate of Anke, who died at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Upon her touching him, he suffers a violent seizure that erases his memories before she leaves. In the present day, a carving of Klemperer and Anke's initials on the wall of their dacha goes unnoticed by its current occupants. In a post-credits scene, Susie stares approvingly at something outside the academy.
Cast
Analysis and themes Motherhood The theme of motherhood is explored frequently in the film, both within the coven and in Susie's early life and relationship to her own mother. Michael Leader of Sight & Sound considers the film "an extended exercise in metafictional annotation that insists on dragging the original's darkest metaphors into the light."
Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post links the film's theme of motherhood (characterized alongside its "discontents" as being "chewed on like a vulture tearing at a carrion") with ethnic nationalism, though he states that "neither subtext goes much of anywhere". Julie Bloom echoed similar sentiments in The New York Times, writing that while the film "revels in gore and gruesome displays of horror... it also delves into the dynamics of a wholly female community, touching on issues of power, manipulation, motherhood and the horrible things some women can do to other women and themselves."
Matt Goldberg of Collider interprets a perfidious form of motherhood as a core theme of the film, as he notes the matrons merely pretend "to be motherly towards the students, [but] they're actually just using them for their power." Madame Blanc's near-decapitation at the hands of Mother Markos when she is resistant to beginning the sabbath demonstrates that Blanc and Markos "do not share the same values", and that Blanc has formed a genuine kinship with Susie. Hannah Ewens of Vice notes: "With coven power transferred to Susie, it's impossible to say where her talent ends and the influence of the mothers begins. Mothers aren't supposed to have favorites, but deep down they often do—and Madame Blanc's is Susie from the moment of her audition."
Abuse of power and national guilt For the majority of the film, Susie appears to be an otherwise normal woman who finds her natural talents rewarded and prized by the coven. As the film progresses into its final act, however, it is revealed that Susie is in fact Mother Suspiriorum, one of the Three Mothers whom the coven exalts. Film Crit Hulk, a pseudonymous writer for The New York Observer, interprets Susie's character arc as the discovery of her shadow self: "Initially she seems just a fresh-faced girl from Ohio, eager to make strides into this esteemed dance company. But her shadow self is soon awoken, which we are meant to fear. Susie unleashes her libido as the rapturous demon below claws at the floor. She turns deeply sexual, almost becoming carnal as she writhes to the ground." Similarly to Goldberg, they interpret Susie's unveiling of herself as Mother Suspiriorium to be messianic in nature, as she eradicates the corrupted Mother Markos and the loyal followers who idolize her. Goldberg reads Susie's destruction of Markos and her followers as retribution for their abuse of power:
While Susie/Mother Suspiriorum shows no mercy for Markos and her followers, Goldberg asserts that she is capable of compassion, citing the fact that she grants the physically devastated Sara, Olga, and Patricia "the sweet release of a gentle death rather than obliterating them." Goldberg extends this interpretation to Susie/Mother Suspiriorum's visit to Klemperer in the epilogue, during which she relates his lost wife's death in a concentration camp, information he had not previously known. Goldberg reads the sequence as an emphasis that "women bonding together have the power to remove the fear of death, and that while the worldespecially the powerfulneed 'guilt' and 'shame,' Klemperer should not feel those things because he has not abused his power. He's the "witness" and from the perspective of witnessing an authoritarian rise to powerin his case, Nazi Germanyhe is responsible for watching and doing nothing. However, it's people in power who need guilt and shame."