"A mother is a woman who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take."
Since its muted release in 2018, Luca Guadagnino's haunting reimagining of Dario Argento's 'Suspiria' has only grown in esteem. When I reviewed it at the time, I described it as "a film that has lost its mind, gone insane, bites and spits and screams and vomits and bleeds, and dances and dances and dances itself to the brink of the abyss". This reflects, I think, the effect of seeing the film for the first time, one of being sensorially overwhelmed, captivated by its brutality and violence. I've since revisited the film many, many times and with each viewing, the initial shock has fallen away to reveal a film of staggering thematic complexity, one that is reticent to make itself explicit but invites interpretation and deeper analysis. In fact, I would go so far as to call Guadagnino's 'Suspiria' one of the most complex horror films of the century so far. No matter how many times I sit through its mad dance of death, I still seem to find gestures in its choreography I'd never noticed before.
Those who came to Guadagnino's film expecting an aesthetic recreation or homage of Argento's were always going to be disappointed, Guadagnino wisely leaving the original's iconic visual and sonic language behind. In all the ways that the 1977 film is lush and beautiful, the 2018 film is harsh and purposefully ugly. The cinematography is chaotic, the editing is lacerating and the violence favours brutality over poetry. What Guadagnino is more interested in are the thematic crumbs Argento leaves behind, taking the essential circumstances of the original film and cultivating them into new growth. Femininity and motherhood are rendered as forces of nature, just as capable of destruction as they are of creation. The film posits these two forces as two sides of the same coin, and through their embrace of dance as their form of expression, these witches are able to dance along the edge of that coin. They aren't cackling, demonic agents of chaos but survivors at all cost, turning the brutalist concrete walls of the dance school into their haven, their prison and their fortress.
The most ingenious elements that this new film brings to the scenario of the original are the social, historical and political contexts that necessitate such a fortress. The Berlin of 1977 and of the 2018 'Suspiria' is one where the Berlin Wall is an ever-present symbol and where political unrest brings blood to the streets. It's a city in the throes of catastrophic collective trauma, barely thirty years after playing stage to the worst crimes of humanity. This national trauma lies at the heart of 'Suspiria' and the veracity with which Guadagnino and his collaborators manifest that trauma, even within the intimate setting of the dance school, make the film one of the few true horror epics. Where the 1977 'Suspiria' (as sublime as it is) feels thematically light as a feather, the 2018 film is heavy, dense, historic, monolithic.
'SUSPIRIA' TRAILER
The witches of the coven now become battle-weary, paranoid survivors of a catastrophe, riddled with the emotional scars of having survived through Nazism, fascism and the Second World War. Between them is a divide on how best to move forward - to hold onto the old ways that allowed them to endure, give in to the overwhelming despair of having survived when so many didn't, or look towards a uncertain but hopefully more optimistic future. This is the trinity played by Tilda Swinton in the film, the thematic tryptic of Blanc, Marcos and Klemperer. Each character, all embodied by Swinton, represents a facet of the shattered remains of Germany. They stand in contrast to the emerging generation, one who were born into the post-Nazi era, who don't know a world without the Wall but who never suffered through the nightmare, only suffering now through the aftermath. The push-and-pull of 'Suspiria' is how we move on from a traumatic past, only that the traumatic past isn't personal but national. How do we move forward from a haunted past when the blood of the slain has seeped into the very ground you walk on?
'Suspiria' is a wholly unforgiving experience, a guttural roar of a film, but ultimately a hopeful one. By the end, it isn't so much that the slate is wiped clean but that the unspoken words are finally spoken. The first step to cleaning a mess is to acknowledge that there is a mess, and Susie - mother, sister, daughter, goddess - can speak its name. In the aftermath of the film's box office and awards failure, it feels as if Luca Guadagnino's insane vision for 'Suspiria' has now been more readily embraced, ranking it as, not only one of his best films, but one of the best horror films of the past decade.
PICTURE & SOUND
The biggest coup here is the long-awaited 4K UHD debut of 'Suspiria' for the English-speaking market, having only been released in a few European countries. I was unsure how much the higher resolution would benefit this particular film, as there's an intentional desaturation and a heavy grain structure to its look. It was a real pleasure then to see how much of an improvement this 2160p 1.85:1 transfer is over the original Blu-ray release. The increased resolution brings out an extraordinary amount of detail (especially in the costumes) and the use of HDR10 makes the carefully chosen colour palette really pop. This is one of the big differences between the 1977 and the 2018 film, the former being a symphony of colour and the latter appearing far more subdued. With this 4K transfer though, there's more range in the colour palette visible, making the film look a touch more vibrant without impacting the integrity of the colour grading and design.
The Dolby Atmos 7.1 track likewise improves on the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track from the original Blu-ray (also included here). There's a noticeable increase in detail, especially with the subtler aspects of the film's complex sound design. Like the transfer, it gives the film an additional sonic muscularity, vital for a film where music and sound play such a key role in the storytelling.
The Blu-ray disc features the 1080p 1.85:1 transfer from the original Blu-ray release, but does also add the Atmos track, meaning that both film discs offer the same audio and English subtitle options.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Imprint have gone above and beyond with this release of 'Suspiria'. From what I can ascertain, this three-disc set offers the most comprehensive collection of bonus material of any release of the film, clocking in at nearly six hours. Most of this material has been made specifically for this release.
Both the 4K UHD and the Blu-ray feature a new audio commentary from University College Cork academic and author Miranda Cochran, whose work has included writings on witchcraft, genre fiction and twenty-first century literature. This is a really great, lively track, unpacking many of the subtler details in the film and linking it back to the rich history of witchcraft and femininity throughout history. Both discs also both feature the film's original Teaser Trailer and Trailer.
The Blu-ray also carries over the short EPK featurettes included on most original Blu-ray releases of the film. These include:
The bulk of the special features can be found on the third disc. This material includes:
Of this material, the new features produced by Imprint are the highlights, offering a surprising amount of background information on the making of the film and useful analysis on its many influences. In 'Cuts', Walter Fasano discusses his ongoing working relationship with Guadagnino, his shared love for the original with the director and how key sequences were edited. It's the closest we get to a comprehensive making-of feature on the film and his insight into the creative choices is really exciting.
This is complemented beautifully by 'Of Witches, Mothers and Death', where Davide Pulici provides valuable context, not just for Guadagnino's film, but the Argento original and the other attempts to remake it. This is a really dynamic discussion, carefully placing the film in context, and that baton is picked up by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in 'Suspiria's Tree Fathers', where she opens up the discussion to include the works of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder and, in particular, his 1979 television film 'The Third Generation'. Both Pulici and Heller-Nicholas help to unpack the dense socio-political subtext of the 2018 film and how it relates to the original and the time in which it was made. These influences are further unpacked by Phillip Jeffries in 'Thom Yorke's Spells', where the intricacies of Yorke's remarkable score are discussed in thrilling detail.
All four of these newly-produced featurettes are of a very high quality, further proof of the tremendous care that went into the creation of this set. The rest of the material is all contemporary to the film's release, but for the most part, offers a candid view on the making of the film from the cast and crew. Most of this material is available online, but it was a great move on Imprint's part to include it here on this set.
The packaging itself is handsomely designed, though I still don't quite understand Imprint's tendency to have multiple cases for a three-disc set of the same film. The design is striking, a purely black box with the red Suspiria logo on the front and sides. While the size of the set might be a bit overkill, there's certainly been a lot of care put into its look. The set also comes with seven character art cards in a small sleeve that fits neatly in the box.
Overall, it's pretty exciting to see this remarkable film given the attention on physical media it so desperately deserved. Imprint have really gone above and beyond with this one, not only giving the film its English-language 4K UHD debut but supplementing it with well-produced, well-considered special features that help to unpack the tantalising riddles at its heart.
In all the ways that the 1977 film is lush and beautiful, the 2018 film is harsh and purposefully ugly. The cinematography is chaotic, the editing is lacerating and the violence favours brutality over poetry. What Guadagnino is more interested in are the thematic crumbs Argento leaves behind.
These aren't particularly in-depth, but there's some good material in here and it's commendable of Imprint to include them.