Suspiria

Italy, 1977, 35mm, 2.35, colour, 98′, original English version
16.4. | 20:00 | Slovenian Cinematheque

directed by Dario Argento written by Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi (based on Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas De Quincey) cinematography Luciano Tovoli music Goblin, Dario Argento, Philip Glass editing Franco Fraticelli cast Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Udo Kier, Alida Valli, Joan Bennett

Young American ballerina, Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), arrives to Europe to enrol at the prestigious dance academy in Freiburg. Unaware that the conservative institution is in fact the den of a supernatural convent of witches with a sinister plan to take over the world.

The supreme masterpiece of Italian baroque horror and giallo legend Dario Argento, in which extravagant form all but devours the already minimalist, tenuous plot, giving way to absurd twists and wildly saturated colours. The result is an unforgettable and purely cinematic experience of throbbing movement, shock and suspense. The screening of Suspiria is a fundamental lesson in (horror) film history.

“Argento’s thrillers have been compared to those of Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, with whom he shares a sense of the utter chaos lurking beneath everyday reality. But Hitchcock and Lang never quite got around to the disturbing catharsis of Suspiria (1977). While the plots of the mysteries often strain at the bounds of logic and possibility, Suspiria wrenches itself free by taking its heroine (Jessica Harper) beyond an investigation of a friend’s death into a world of witchcraft and the supernatural. Argento celebrates his liberation from the fetters of logical plotting with a feast of the unreal and the incredible. Suspiria is a loud film, with dazzling colours achieved through the use of outmoded Technicolor stock, and a deafening score from the rock group Goblin that hisses ‘witch!’ in stereo long before Harper realises that the basement of the Freiburg Tanz Akademie houses an incredibly ancient sorceress whose evil influence pervades the whole city. ‘There is magic all around us’, Harper concludes, her words borne out by the Mario Bava-esque lighting which turns the crumbling art deco Akademie into an annex of Hell, and the way even the automatic doors at the airport seem to have a threatening life of their own. The script is a nonstop catalogue of poetic absurdities, played with gusto by the sinister likes of Alida Valli and Joan Bennett.”
– Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies