Suspiria

Fig.1

Suspiria was created by Dario Argento in 1977. The movie starts with starts of with tension and horror. The director did not hold back the horror but immediately scared the audience making the audience attentive to the film because this left a stigma code that the audience has to try and answer with the Suzy in her adventure. This film got nominated two Saturn awards for best-supporting actress (1978) and best DVD Classic film release (2002). This proves how influential the film has gotten and as if that was not enough Luca Guadagnino is going recreate this movie in 2018.
A girl named Suzy (played by Jessica Harper) travels to a ballet school in Germany. When she arrives, she sees Pat (acted by Eva Axen) who leaves the school in terror. A short scene of Pat was shown as she gets murdered brutally which was shown in details (for example stabbed in the heart with no flesh). As Suzy enters the school her adventure begins as she discovers the truth.

Fig.2

“As she passes through, there is a disconcerting and disorienting cut to the doors’ electric mechanism operating as they open and close again – and Suzy is out, in the harsh elements, soaked and alienated and struggling to hail a taxi.” (Giallo, 2017) As Gallo described Dario tried to show a contrast between the normal and abnormal. For example, when she was first presented everything went smoothly and felt warm, as the door started opening a close up was used to show the door’s “electric mechanism operating” and as she steps outside it became busy and unwelcoming. This is a connotation trying to tell us ‘Suzy’ is not going to find her trip here welcoming. What makes the movie terrifying and uncomfortable to watch is the death scenes. The camera turns into a hand-held camera to an extreme close up making the viewers uncomfortable. Dario also made sure the camera focusses on the things that audience tried to resist when watching a horror movie. For example, Pat’s beating heart was shown as it got stabbed many times, close up was used making it extremely violent and hard to watch as it felt as if you are getting stabbed countless times.

Fig.3

The music used in the scene is comforting, however unpleasant to listen to. The instruments used to create a melody that sounds like a fairy-tale is overlapped with an old woman singing “la la la” in a gruesome way. “The best way to approach it is to look at the entire thing as a dark and decidedly adult version of the fairy tales that we all heard as children. After all, this is a film that literally opens on a dark and stormy night and includes other familiar tropes, such as dark forests, witches, spells and a pure and innocent heroine.” (Sobcysinski, 2017) Supporting this with the statement of the ‘music sounding like a fairy-tale’ tells us the about the school, even though the school looks beautiful there is something abnormal in the background. This music is only especially used when danger is about to happen which attracts a passive audience as they would tremble with fear knowing that something terrible is about to happen.
The fashion shown in this movie is beautiful as the clothing described the characters. For example, the main character ‘Suzy’ is wearing an elegant dress to show that she is the innocent girl in this bizarre school. In the ending when everything was over she wore a dark brown jumper over her dress connoting she got stained.

Fig.4

“Argento's masterful use of deep primary colours — the sets are bathed in garish red and green light (he acquired 1950s Technicolor stock to get the effect) giving the whole film a hallucinatory intensity. The score, composed by Argento and performed by his frequent collaborators, rock band Goblin, sounds as though Hell's demons rented a studio and decided to jam. Screams, wailings, hissing steam and some kind of diabolical digeridoo are punctuated with the occasional distorted shriek of "Witch!" (Smith, 2015) Following what Smith says Dario became rough with sounds and lights. He uses different lights to show something abnormal “that cannot be explained” is happening. In the begging of the scene when Suzy was going to the ballet school it started to rain heavily. Green, blue, red was used to represent where she is about to go. All these colours are what you would normally use to represent ‘aliens’ (green), a connotation of abnormality.
 In conclusion, different colours of lights express the abnormality going on in the scene and gives us a sense of danger. The fashion designer focused on dressing the characters in a way that represents them.




Bibliography:

Smith, A (2015) – Suspiria Review at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/suspiria/review/ [Accessed: 17/12/2017]

Sobcysinski, P (2017) - "Do You Know Anything About Witches?": "Suspiria" at 40 at: https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/do-you-know-anything-about-witches-suspiria-at-40 [Accessed: 17/12/2017]

Gaillo, P (2017) – The surreal, singular genius of Dario Argento’s Suspiria at:
http://lwlies.com/articles/suspiria-review-dario-argento-giallo/  [Accessed: 17/12/2017]


Illustration:

Fig.1 – Suspiria- Dario Argento – Film Poster (1977)

Fig.2 - Suspiria- Dario Argento – Still image (1977)

Fig.3 - Suspiria- Dario Argento – Gif Image (1977)

Fig.4 - Suspiria- Dario Argento – Still Image (1977)