Thoughts on Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria”
Luca Guadagnino's "Suspiria" explores motherhood in the sense that it exists as the offspring of another being; a piece of art that exists solely as a response to, and in constant conversation with, its creator. This is true of every piece of media and art. It exists only because of the context, and thereby society, in which it was created -- in Guadagnino's "Suspiria," by choosing to remake a personally influential film and surround it within the political influence and context in which the film was originally created within, Guadagnino allows for a metatextual exploration of what it means to, quoting Tilda Swinton's 'Madame Blanc,' "dance the dance of another." The original Suspiria is nearly plotless, serving largely as an aesthetic experience drenched in giallo tropes and paradoxically defining much of the genres future path; it revels in self-contradiction, centering on the female experience while simultaneously exploiting those same female characters. What Gaudagnino borrows from the original in plot is derived from the political context in which the original was created, and turns much of those narrative devices on its head by centering the story not just on the female experience, but what it means to create and, more importantly, recreate.
Gaudagnino's "Suspiria" begins by introducing Patricia's character, suffering from supposed paranoia in response to the dance troupe's manipulations; she is afraid of constant surveillance, deeply afraid of any prying eyes -- so much so that she flips over every instance of an eyeball or face in the room. She shares this to her therapist, one of three characters played by Tilda Swinton. From there, we are introduced to Susie, a woman leaving the Mennonite community with only the money in her pocket to audition for the Markos Dance Academy. Here, we are introduced to Tilda Swinton's second role, Madame Blanc, and the rest of the troupe's leadership. The following scene introduces us to both Olga and Sara, whose respective absence and presence will direct the path of the rest of the story. All of this culminates to the end of Act I, with Sara meeting Susie in her hotel room, where a bomb goes off in the background. This is one of the central themes of Guadagnino's remake; the story that we are seeing is happening in the context of something else entirely. There is a political backbone, a revolutionary weaving that serves as the allegorical "walls" for this story. A spider's web in which our characters are trapped, whose path is determined by the strings that hold them. The feminist tropes themselves live in contrast and contradiction to Darrio Argento's original vision. here, Gaudagnino places the female struggle centerstage; "In this company, we understand fully the importance of a woman’s financial autonomy."
This is the genius of his remake, it is the thing it is referencing while exploring the situation that created that idea to begin with; traversing the world that allowed this story to come into fruition. "When you dance the dance of another, you recreate yourself in its image. You empty yourself, so that her work can live within you." 1977, the year Suspiria came out, is itself the context in which Suspiria (2018) exists. It is a retelling in as much as it is an academic exploration of the original. It deconstructs the Giallo tropes, which were born in an era of cinema that was responding directly to the aesthetics of fascist art, placing them in the context of that same political turmoil. "During the war he was Nazi SS. An officer. Now he runs the German Employer’s Association -- You don’t get how awful that is, do you?" In every respect, the year 1977 is the mother of the original "Suspiria." This idea is almost literally explored in Sara and Dr. Klemper's second meeting, where Klemper talks about the similarities between the German Reich and his interpretations regarding Patricia's "paranoia" about the troupe.
A large non-diegetic metaphor is the recurring usage of Tilda Swinton's character, as she plays Mother Markos, Madame Blanc, and Dr. Klemper: in a sense, she plays all three matriarch, succedent, and deconstructor. This is important because it lends to the larger metaphor of contradictions within a single entity, or "work" in this respect, that Guadagnino is attempting to explore in "Suspiria." It also allows for a further exploration of the aesthetics responding to a larger fascist political framework, as in the final ritual they each literalize their metaphors; Klemper as the witness to the atrocities of fascism, Blanc as the unwitting perpetrator of these crimes, and Mother Markos as the instigator of the entire ritual. Susie's involvement here mirrors Guadagnino's own involvement, taking the dance of another and redefining it instead of allowing it to redefine him; he places the aesthetics of the original as the literal antagonist of the story, and dives deep into what those aesthetics mean in a modern context. "These two areas of Patricia's life are equally important. This is how transience is made. This is how delusions are made." Guadagnino's story exists in a meta-textual landscape, decidedly post-modern and post-Derridian in its structure: in its own self-contradictory way, by further abstracting Argento's original (and already) abstracted plot, Guadagnino is able to hone in on the core of the metaphors explored in the original. Here, in 2018, these elements are laid bare: the roots are placed in equal importance as the tree that shades them. "Think of that false mother now, lying in her reek of pain. Release her from you. You have the Mothers you need now. Death to any other mother." to which Susie responds, "I am the Mother."
The main thesis of the film is summed up in one line near the midpoint of the film: "There are two things that dance can never be again. Beautiful and cheerful." In a more removed sense, what Guadagnino is talking about here is what it means to recreate a film in every respect. He pays homage to Argento's work by exploring and exploiting the political landscape that shaped the original. "Love and manipulation... they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows." He explores the fringes of the metaphors its mother touched on, from the privileged vantage point of hindsight. He places the love and appreciation he has for the 1977 version directly in opposition to the metaphors that it uses -- all in an effort to synthesize those contrasting ideas.