Suspiria
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Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento, and co-written by Argento and actress Daria Nicolodi, whom Argento was romantically involved with at the time. (Their daughter is actress Asia Argento.) Nicolodi claims the plot was inspired by an experience of her grandmother's. Nicolodi originally used stories her grandmother told her as a child. The setting was originally to be a children's school, but they later changed it to feature older teens at a dance school. Entertainment Weekly called the film "The scariest movie ever made." Suspiria is considered Argento's finest film and a classic of the horror genre, a seminal entry in the "slasher film" canon.
The story
Suspiria is the first film in a trilogy Argento refers to as "The Three Mothers," about evil forces attempting to break through to the earth and wreak merciless havoc. Argento's next film, Inferno (1980), was the second in the trilogy. The third remains unrealized.
The story involves a young US ballet student, Susy Banyon, who arrives in Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy. On the night she arrives, there is a torrential downpour, and she is unable to gain admittance to the school. But she witnesses one student, a young blonde girl, flee the building in a panic.
The fleeing student is horribly murdered, and Susy begins having suspicions that all is not as it seems at the school. She begins experiencing inexplicable dizzy spells, and other deaths occur, such as that of the school's blind pianist, who is savaged by his own seeing-eye dog the night after he is fired from his job.
Susy ultimately discovers the school is a front for a coven of witches who practice a diabolical black magic. The headmistress of the school turns out to be a legendary black witch over a century old, who has kept herself alive through devilish rituals. Susy uncovers the school's secret chamber in which the rituals take place, and manages to kill the ancient witch.
About Suspiria
The title Suspiria and the general concept of the "Three Mothers" came from Thomas De Quincey's Suspiria De Profundis in a section titled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow. The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates, and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears," "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs," and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness."
Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks. The film was shot with anamorphic lenses; the production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting.
But no aspect of Suspiria was as influential as Argento's flamboyant approach to shooting the many killings that take place in the story. Argento already had a reputation for brutal violence in his films, such as his preceding feature, Deep Red, and he would later in his career draw much criticism for it, including charges of misogyny which he staunchly denies. In Suspiria, victims are murdered in extremely elaborate ways. E.g.: the first student to die initially has her face shoved through a window, then she is stabbed in the heart repeatedly (in close up), then she is tied up, and her body dropped through the glass skylight of a building, only to be stopped in mid-fall by a rope around her neck.
Some viewers find this sort of thing excessive to the point of absurdity, but most fans of the horror genre recognize that the stylization is deliberate on the part of Argento — that he intends to take viewers away from the real world into a realm of his own nightmare, so to speak.
Suspiria propelled Argento to the front ranks of horror directors throughout the world. Though many of his later films were admired by his fans, it is generally thought that he has not since lived up to the artistic accomplishment of Suspiria.
There has also been an electronic music band that took its name directly from the film's title. They should, however, not be confused with similiarly spelled Susperia, a Norwegian black metal band (the spelling was deliberate to avoid copyright issues).
A special edition DVD was released in the United States in 2001.
A remake is rumored and was expected for a 2005 release, but nothing of its status is known as of 2006 (though the film is still listed with a 2005 release at the Internet Movie Database).
This movie has recently been sampled in a few Underground Rap songs, namely Cage Kennylz' Weatherpeople and Atmosphere's Bird Sings Why the Caged I Know.
Soundtrack
The Italian rock band Goblin mostly composed the musical score for the film. Goblin also composed music for several other films by Dario Argento. The score for Suspiria is considered a unique masterpiece. It developed into a cult hit ahead of its time. Goblin frontman Claudio Simonetti went onto to form a heavy metal band, Daemonia, and the 2001 Anchor Bay DVD release contains a video of the band playing a re-working of the Suspiria theme song.ja:サスペリア it:Suspiria