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    Suspiria - 1977 - Dario Argento

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    Scott Turner
    Suspiria is a 1977 film directed by Dario Argento about an American dancer, Suzy, who moves to a prestigious ballet school in Germany. However, she soon discovers that something sinister is happening at the school when students start going missing and the teachers begin acting strangely. The film uses heavy use of the color red throughout to convey a sense of danger and unease. While the plot is confusing and nonlinear, critics praise the unsettling atmosphere created by Argento's stylized direction and use of symbolism. In the end, it is revealed that the teachers are actually witches, though this revelation undercuts some of the earlier built tension.

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    Suspiria - 1977 - Dario Argento

    Uploaded by

    Scott Turner
    145 views3 pages
    Suspiria is a 1977 film directed by Dario Argento about an American dancer, Suzy, who moves to a prestigious ballet school in Germany. However, she soon discovers that something sinister is happening at the school when students start going missing and the teachers begin acting strangely. The film uses heavy use of the color red throughout to convey a sense of danger and unease. While the plot is confusing and nonlinear, critics praise the unsettling atmosphere created by Argento's stylized direction and use of symbolism. In the end, it is revealed that the teachers are actually witches, though this revelation undercuts some of the earlier built tension.

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    Suspiria

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    Suspiria – 1977 – Dario Argento

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    Suspiria is a 1977 film directed by Dario Argento about an American dancer, Suzy, who moves to a prestigious ballet school in Germany. However, she soon discovers that something sinister is happening at the school when students start going missing and the teachers begin acting strangely. The film uses heavy use of the color red throughout to convey a sense of danger and unease. While the plot is confusing and nonlinear, critics praise the unsettling atmosphere created by Argento's stylized direction and use of symbolism. In the end, it is revealed that the teachers are actually witches, though this revelation undercuts some of the earlier built tension.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    145 views3 pages

    Suspiria - 1977 - Dario Argento

    Uploaded by

    Scott Turner
    Suspiria is a 1977 film directed by Dario Argento about an American dancer, Suzy, who moves to a prestigious ballet school in Germany. However, she soon discovers that something sinister is happening at the school when students start going missing and the teachers begin acting strangely. The film uses heavy use of the color red throughout to convey a sense of danger and unease. While the plot is confusing and nonlinear, critics praise the unsettling atmosphere created by Argento's stylized direction and use of symbolism. In the end, it is revealed that the teachers are actually witches, though this revelation undercuts some of the earlier built tension.

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    Suspiria 1977 Dario Argento Suspiria a film about an American dancer who moves to Germany to become a student at a Ballet

    let School but she soon finds out that something is wrong when people go missing and the teachers start action odd. At the start of the film Suzy (the young American) lands in Germany, amid a terrible storm. Right from the beginning Dario starts to subtly hint that Suzy is out of her depth; for example she struggles to get a cab from the airport, making her look naive and young; when she finally hails a cab, the language barrier makes it hard for her to say where she wants to go, reinforcing the idea that she is lost and out of her depth.

    Figure 1

    Blake Davis discusses that Suspiria is a get-under-your-skin makes no sense classic with some of the scariest images ever put on film (Davis 2005) and Id have to agree. The narrative doesnt seem to make the slightest bit of sense, an American girl leave for Germany to dance, where she falls ill and discovers that the teachers wall down the corridor the wrong way when the go to bed; so she follows them and discovers they are all witches then she kills the head witch. At no point when you start watching the film is there any sign that there are going to be witches involved. There is however a great deal of the colour red through the film; red lights, red posters, red chairs, a red hotel, red hallways and all the lights are red, this gives the impression at the start of the film that love, danger or blood is going to be a key theme.

    Figure 2

    Jonathan Crocker from total film also discusses the confusing nature of Suspiria stating that Argento's masterpiece is a movie in which nothing and nobody makes sense. (Crocker 2012) Suspiria is full of symbolism that all connote power, death and anxiety; for example when Suzy washed her medicine down the sink, it stains the basin red, this has striking connotations to films such as Casio Royal and Only God Forgives when Daniel Craig and Ryan Gosling wash the blood off their hands after a gruesome fight. It symbols like this that have no correlation to the film and make it confusing, as Suspiria isnt particularly violent, yes there are some killings and yes-horrible deaths but all the seriousness is removed when the murders are revealed as witches. As I previously stated the colour red holds a great significance in this film. Through the use of red lighting Argento creates an unease that affects the audience directly whilst also setting the mood nicely in the film, this unease generates empathy towards Suzy and her friends as they come together to find out whats going on.

    Figure 3

    That said I still feel that the last 25 minutes of the film strip the symbolism and elegance of the film back, removing the tension and anticipation and replacing it with a joke worthy ending.

    Bibliography

    Blake Davis 2005 - Suspiria - Movie Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes. 2013. Suspiria - Movie Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020662-suspiria/reviews/#page=2. Jonathan Crocker - 2012 - Suspiria Review | TotalFilm.com. 2013. Suspiria Review | TotalFilm.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/blu-ray/suspiria-2

    Images Figure 1 - Suspiria | Evil Monito. 2013. Suspiria | Evil Monito. [ONLINE] Available at:http://evilmonito.com/2011/09/15/47086/.

    Figure 2 - Suspiria | Tom Girard. 2013. Suspiria | Tom Girard. [ONLINE] Available at:http://tommygirard.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/suspiria/. Figure 3 - SUSPIRIA | Brattle Theatre Film Notes. 2013. SUSPIRIA | Brattle Theatre Film Notes. [ONLINE] Available at:http://brattleblog.brattlefilm.org/2013/06/18/suspiria1484/#.Uqh0jWRdWFY.

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