Dancing WITH THE DEVIL
‘Suspiria’ a twisted, mesmerizing tale
Set in a prestigious, if dank, women’s dance academy in 1977 Berlin, against a backdrop of a terrorist hostage crisis and exploding bombs, Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” is both a riff on Dario Argento’s 1977 “Snow White”-inspired Euro-horror classic and a mix of “Black Swan” and “Hereditary.” Dancing in blood-colored ribbon costumes, suggesting unwound “bandage” dresses, and cloistered together without male companionship, except for an aged male psychotherapist (Tilda Swinton), the film’s dancers, including Miss “Fifty Shades of Grey” Dakota Johnson, are a coven of whirling witches, who (I think) open up the portals of hell and unleash three mysterious, ancient “Ladies of Sorrow” known in Latin as Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Tenebrarum and Mater Suspiriorum. To tell the truth I didn’t grasp the entire meaning or plot of “Suspiria,” which is a triumph of style over substance (I had trouble with Argento’s original as well). But I dug Guadagnino’s unbridled visionary bravado. While I could have done without the entire Swint on playing-a-man bit, she also plays the dance director, and the film is such a total pseudo-occult freak show that I have great respect for Guadagnino (“Call Me By Your Name”) and screenwriter David Kajganich (“A Bigger Splash”). To say that Kajganich’s reworking of themes created by Argento (“Profondo Rosso”) and co-writer Daria Nicolodi loosely based on Thomas De Quincey’s 1845 essay “Suspiria de profundis” is not entirely coherent is an understatement. Maybe like De Quincey, you need to be an opium eater to understand the film’s dark matriarchal mysticism or torturous Bob Fosse-on-speed choreography. This “Suspiria” is more than a bit of a mess and a hideously brutal one at times. But it’s a glorious,
fearless mess. Like Goblin’s work for Argento, the spooky score by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke is an integral part of the film’s intoxicating atmosphere. Like the precursor of Rosemary in “Rosemary’s Baby,” American dancer Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) backs out of some evil arrangement with the dance troupe and explains her reasons to Dr. Josef Klemperer (Swinton) in opening scenes. Enter Susie Bannion (a game Dakota Johnson in the role played by Jessica Harper). Susie is a self-trained nobody from Ohio, whose talent and beauty stun dance mistress Madame Blanc (Swinton in a role originally played by — Holy “Dark Shadows” — Joan Bennett). The Academy is run by a coven of witches. Among them are the obviously crazy Rosa Klebb-like Miss Tanner (a fun Angela Winkler), the towering Miss Millius (fashion model Alek Wek) and Miss Huller (the wondrous Renee Soutendijk, “The 4th Man”). Warning: What happens to Patricia and another rebellious dancer is harder to watch than that peach scene in “Call Me By Your Name.” In evocations of “Flashdance” and “The Red Shoes,” Susie and the other dancers practice to the point of trance for the revival of a “Rite of Spring”-like work titled “Volk.” Johnson is a lot more fun to watch and appreciate in this than in those godawful “Fifty Shades of Grey” films. “Suspiria” is about what men suspect women get up to if left together for too long, i.e., they make deals with the devil. I didn’t entirely get “Suspiria,” and it’s not for everyone. But I loved it. (“Suspiria” contains extreme, graphic violence, nudity and a demon clothed in rotting flesh.)