Post by klep on Dec 28, 2020 11:30:17 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/28: Suspiria (2018)
REMAKE/REBOOT WEEK!
Dario Argento's original Suspiria from 1977 was largely an exercise in color and mood. Its narrative was light and served primarily as a framing device for the horror set pieces. It's a vibrant display; Italian giallo at its finest.
Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake, by contrast, focuses more on plot and theme. He moves the film from Freiburg to Berlin, at the height of the German Autumn - a period of political unrest which saw a number of kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, and so on in West Germany in furtherance of leftist objectives. Among the issues that gave rise to the unrest was the flawed and failed process of de-Nazification, whereby known Nazis were able to gain positions of political and economic influence and power in the post-war era while - for example - the Communist party was banned.
Guadagnino is specifically interested in is in the way generational failures have impacts on the generations after them, the guilt that can create, and the way the older generation refuses to relinquish control to the young regardless. Young Susie (Dakota Johnson) arrives at the Markos Dance Academy unaware that it is home to a coven of witches who exploit their dancers for their rituals. She arrives at a time when the coven's leader Helena Markos (Tilda Swinton) is dying and they have already failed once to revive her - a previous attempt recently cost the life of Patricia (Chloƫ Grace Moretz). While Susie is at first an unwitting victim, it becomes apparent that she's picking up more than the coven expects and by the film's bloody climax it becomes horrifyingly evident that Susie knows more about what's going on than the coven does itself. They are so focused on their own desire to preserve their power that they fail to see the next generation coming up behind them.
Also trying to determine what's going on at the school is Patricia's therapist Dr. Klemperer (Tilda Swinton, as Lutz Ebersdorf). He feels some responsibility for the missing patient whose complaints he dismissed as delusions. As his investigation proceeds we learn that he lost his wife during Nazi rule, and that she was a Jewish woman dependent on the Aryan papers Klemperer had acquired for her to stay safe. Tragically, if unsurprisingly, she was ultimately rounded up and shipped off to a concentration camp to die regardless.
Klemperer's failure is that he could have left Germany with his wife, but chose not to. It echoes the failure of Germany in general to recognize the threat the Nazi party presented. He seems to never have been made to face his own complicity in his wife's death until the witches so cruelly make him near the film's end, similar to how the German public turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed by their leadership under Nazi rule.
Guadagnino's horror instincts in Suspiria are impeccable. He expertly draws tension from negative space, and manages to imply the threat inherent in a dancer's every movement - the way they threaten to break the body with one wrong move. His efforts are further enhanced by Thom Yorke's score, which echoes the creepiness of the original film's music. But unlike Argento's original, Guadagnino's film is almost completely desaturated. Its primary colors are reds, but even the should-be vibrant red of Susie's hair seems pale and washed out. It isn't until the grand guignol scenes at the end that the reds seem to come alive, as if the stagnancy of the coven was robbing the world around it of life.
One of the chief questions a filmmaker must answer when revisiting a previous work - particularly a well-regarded one - is why? What new take on the material does the new filmmaker have, and what makes it good enough to justify at least partially retreading old ground? It's safe to say that Guadagnino had those answers, and infused a classic with a new depth and new meaning worthy of our attention.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/4: Hunt for the Wilderpeople
OPTIMISM WEEK!
Shortly before Marvel sent Taika Waititi to greater heights of fame than we would have thought possible, he put out this touching film about a young boy trying to find a place where he belongs. Join us next week as we discuss Hunt for the Wilderpeople, available on Hulu, Kanopy, and Netflix and for rent in the usual places.
THE NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODAST is taking this week off.
REMAKE/REBOOT WEEK!
Dario Argento's original Suspiria from 1977 was largely an exercise in color and mood. Its narrative was light and served primarily as a framing device for the horror set pieces. It's a vibrant display; Italian giallo at its finest.
Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake, by contrast, focuses more on plot and theme. He moves the film from Freiburg to Berlin, at the height of the German Autumn - a period of political unrest which saw a number of kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, and so on in West Germany in furtherance of leftist objectives. Among the issues that gave rise to the unrest was the flawed and failed process of de-Nazification, whereby known Nazis were able to gain positions of political and economic influence and power in the post-war era while - for example - the Communist party was banned.
Guadagnino is specifically interested in is in the way generational failures have impacts on the generations after them, the guilt that can create, and the way the older generation refuses to relinquish control to the young regardless. Young Susie (Dakota Johnson) arrives at the Markos Dance Academy unaware that it is home to a coven of witches who exploit their dancers for their rituals. She arrives at a time when the coven's leader Helena Markos (Tilda Swinton) is dying and they have already failed once to revive her - a previous attempt recently cost the life of Patricia (Chloƫ Grace Moretz). While Susie is at first an unwitting victim, it becomes apparent that she's picking up more than the coven expects and by the film's bloody climax it becomes horrifyingly evident that Susie knows more about what's going on than the coven does itself. They are so focused on their own desire to preserve their power that they fail to see the next generation coming up behind them.
Also trying to determine what's going on at the school is Patricia's therapist Dr. Klemperer (Tilda Swinton, as Lutz Ebersdorf). He feels some responsibility for the missing patient whose complaints he dismissed as delusions. As his investigation proceeds we learn that he lost his wife during Nazi rule, and that she was a Jewish woman dependent on the Aryan papers Klemperer had acquired for her to stay safe. Tragically, if unsurprisingly, she was ultimately rounded up and shipped off to a concentration camp to die regardless.
Klemperer's failure is that he could have left Germany with his wife, but chose not to. It echoes the failure of Germany in general to recognize the threat the Nazi party presented. He seems to never have been made to face his own complicity in his wife's death until the witches so cruelly make him near the film's end, similar to how the German public turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed by their leadership under Nazi rule.
Guadagnino's horror instincts in Suspiria are impeccable. He expertly draws tension from negative space, and manages to imply the threat inherent in a dancer's every movement - the way they threaten to break the body with one wrong move. His efforts are further enhanced by Thom Yorke's score, which echoes the creepiness of the original film's music. But unlike Argento's original, Guadagnino's film is almost completely desaturated. Its primary colors are reds, but even the should-be vibrant red of Susie's hair seems pale and washed out. It isn't until the grand guignol scenes at the end that the reds seem to come alive, as if the stagnancy of the coven was robbing the world around it of life.
One of the chief questions a filmmaker must answer when revisiting a previous work - particularly a well-regarded one - is why? What new take on the material does the new filmmaker have, and what makes it good enough to justify at least partially retreading old ground? It's safe to say that Guadagnino had those answers, and infused a classic with a new depth and new meaning worthy of our attention.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/4: Hunt for the Wilderpeople
OPTIMISM WEEK!
Shortly before Marvel sent Taika Waititi to greater heights of fame than we would have thought possible, he put out this touching film about a young boy trying to find a place where he belongs. Join us next week as we discuss Hunt for the Wilderpeople, available on Hulu, Kanopy, and Netflix and for rent in the usual places.
THE NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODAST is taking this week off.