SUSPIRIA Day 29: sie sind hexen

I admit it, in my early viewings of this film, my feelings about the opening scene were tainted by my feelings about Chloë Grace Moretz. Basically, I have never been blown away her acting, at least not since she was much younger (she was great on 30 Rock and I thought she was the best part of the Let the Right One In remake...oh and Clouds of Sils Maria.). I think I was too "Why does she get all the roles? She's not the only actor around that age! Why not Anya Taylor-Joy?" You know, just bein' an old horror blogger yelling at a cloud. While I certainly didn't think she was bad as Patricia or that she stunk up the joint, I did feel that she was the weak link in a movie where everyone is doing, like, accolades-worthy work.

But hot dang! Watching it again (and again) (and ag--) during this month of insanity has me saying "Shut up, old horror blogger! You don't know nothin'!" The opening scene (and especially Moretz) really set the tone for what's to come and boy, we're knocked off-balance right from the start.

We hear the rain–that incessant Berlin rain–and running feet and chanting over a black screen, then we see Patricia, alone in the middle of a riot.

She seems terribly frightened. We'll soon learn that she's afraid of Helena Markos, but she's also afraid of the chaos around her: the yelling, the violence, the smoke bombs. This reaction is, I think, what has Olga so sure later on that Patricia isn't in a basement somewhere filling bottles with petrol. Patricia may have romanticized or admired the RFA, but she wasn't a terrorist. She's not joining in here, and Olga knows that Patricia isn't "missing" by choice.

Patricia bursts into Klemperer's office with a bang and a purpose, pounding on the door and the doorbell madly while softly singing bits of Nico's melancholic "Fairest of the Seasons" to herself. (Side note: What is it with witches' affinities for Nico tracks? Her song with The Velvet Underground, "All Tomorrow's Parties" figured very heavily into Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem.)

Dr. Klemperer immediately senses that Patricia is in some kind of spiral, and so do we. It's not only Patricia's mutterings and physicality, though that's a large part of it. Unceremoniously dropping her bags and shoes, folding and unfolding herself on the furniture and windowsill...she is a live wire, vaguely menacing, maybe a bit dangerous, and Klemperer gives her a wide berth.

What's notable is that the editing is frantic as well. Much of Suspiria comprises long takes, whether it's a closeup of a character or a complex set piece. This gives actors time to shine and lets the audience soak in every detail. Even the horrific scenes tend to be full of long takes–we're forced to see and hear every snap of Olga's bones, every unnatural bend and stretch of her limbs. But this office scene, particularly in its earliest moments, is a rapid-fire series of shots. Closeups of hair and hands and books upon books, up high and down low...we can't catch our breath and it feels claustrophobic. You start to feel like Patricia's madness is leaking out from the screen.

Also, one of those closeups is on Klemperer's biscuit and while I know European food can be...austere, shall we say (probably more so for those who lived through war rationing)...this is clearly the unappealing kind of food that A Very Serious Man would eat.

Right? That thing tells us that this doctor is not going to truck with Patricia's fancies. He's not enjoying an apple or something, he's much more utilitarian than that. It looks like he may have just ripped of a part of his desk for lunch.

And so when Patricia outright calls the women of Markos Tanzgruppe "witches," he is taken aback. The moment is very subtly punctuated by a few quiet, ominous notes of music and an explosion outside.

"And you think they can hear you now?"

Patricia gives a small nod and we cut to the hallway, which is dark and sinister and the whispers begin.

Back in the office, the whispers continue as we get shots of random corners and objects. It reminds me of the series of shots at the end of John Carpenter's Halloween...you know, after Dr. Loomis looks down in the yard but Michael Myers is gone. Carpenter points the camera at all kinds of dark corners and we hear Michael breathing. That movie ends leaving the audience feeling like the Boogeyman could be anywhere, while Suspiria begins that way. No matter what Klemperer thinks, no matter if he's decided that Patricia is delusional...now we know that she's right about the Matrons and they're here.

"Now she can see me," Patricia whispers, and by this point we're feeling mighty unsettled. So is Patricia, who notices that there are eyes everywhere in the room and promptly sets about covering them up. It definitely seems like she's in the middle of a major mental break, but she ain't wrong. Not only do we hear the whispers; one of the eyes on a book spine certainly echoes the all-seeing eye in Helena Markos's room in the 1977 film.

In the midst of this sudden chaos, Patricia inadvertently damages a photograph of Anke. This is what gets Klemperer on his feet at last, and the tenderness and reverence he shows are so wonderful. We don't know the story of the woman in the photo yet, but we immediately know how important and loved she is–or was. While he certainly doesn't care about enjoying some goddamn flavor with his lunch, he cares greatly for her, still.

It also makes him a bit angry, doesn't it? He seems like he's going to give his wayward patient a dressing down, but he holds back. In fact, he has offered her nothing the entire time she's been there, except perhaps an open ear. No advice, no soothing words, nothing. What can he offer, I suppose? She seems to have completely lost touch with reality and likely needs hospitalization. But he doesn't suggest it and Patricia makes to leave.

When she gets to the door she stops. She's a bit calmer, but clearly terrified of what the Matrons will do to her if–when–they find out she talked to him. She briefly rests her head on his chest, maybe as a final goodbye. Although Klemperer doesn't move, it's the last moment of comfort Patricia will get in this life.

I wonder what people who knew nothing about either version of Suspiria thought of Patricia in this scene. Did they simply think she was mad? Or did they buy in to her "delusions"? Even though a year ago I wasn't super into her performance, I never doubted her for a second. If she's mad, it's because they made her that way. Sie sind Hexen and they are everywhere.

SUSPIRIA Day 28: details

Can you believe that 31 Days of Suspiria is almost over? There are only a couple of posts left (not that, you know, October 31st will be the last day I ever talk about it or something) so I wanted to highlight some of the details both large and micromicro that have contributed to this movie ruling my world. Stuff like...

Susie and Sara breaking my heart yet again with this split-second of eye contact during Volk.

They are way past the point of no return here. Sara has been irreparably damaged, and they are both a part of something much larger than either of them, something they cannot stop whether they want to or not. But even through everything that's transpired, even in the middle of a performance, they find each other. Watching Sara wordlessly plead with Susie during the entirety of her time in Volk is completely heartrending, but this small moment kills me.

This shot.

Gorgeous. Ominous. Yes.

Klemperer leaving this newspaper advertising Volk on the train.

It's a nice bit of foreshadowing. He has no idea that that show is going to wreck his whole world.

Klemperer fastidiously dusting.

I am hoping to post about Josef and Anke before this month is through, but this is one of the touches I wanted to highlight now. He takes such care of this sacred place and it's beautiful and yes, heartbreaking. I told you Suspiria was full of tragedies!

Boutaher being cool as fuck.

I should have mentioned this moment during Griffith's suicide dinner party yesterday when Boutaher got a shout out, but I was focused on another moment. If you came away from that thinking "Okay, but is she cool, though?" I present the above photo evidence. And this is before she starts pulling from a beer bottle. Iconic.

This shot.

I know that shortly after this she rips her fucking chest open but this shot, this is the one for me. Stunning. Luca's camera loves every one of these women and it radiates.

Frau Sesame.

I just want to give a shout-out to Frau Sesame the caring and ever-reliable. In a world composed almost entirely of madness, she is always a dose of sanity. The kindness and gentleness in her voice in the epilogue, when Klemperer doesn't recognize her...you get the feeling that they might just be okay. She's the real mother in this film.

Jessica goddamned Harper.

Okay, as I said, Josef and Anke deserve their own post. But look at her here: giving a masterclass of acting in one facial expression. We know by this point that something is up. Anke's reappearance is too good to be true. The border guards are awfully unconcerned with this couple walking through a checkpoint (a nice contrast with the bureaucracy we saw earlier in the film). But her face. She's conveying the gravity and grief and bittersweet happiness Anke would feel, but simultaneously there's another layer to it–a hint of malice, a tinge of the ruse. I know horror fans don't sleep on Jessica Harper, but this shot alone should have the world at her feet.

The breakfast scene.

Boy oh boy, the breakfast scene. The kitchen and dining room slowly fill up with Matrons as the camera moves around and through them. "Has Ended" plays while the voiceovers give us the results of the Markos/Blanc vote. It's the most erotic group breakfast I've ever seen, and I've been to Denny's after all the church people show up, so I know erotic group breakfasts!

We've got Vendegast greeting the day in her super hot racy negligée.

Pavla casually showing us how limber she is because, you know, dancing. Also if you notice the doorway in the back of the shot, you see part of a trend: nearly all of them enter the scene in pairs.

Huller swaggers into the room (with her Operation: Get Klemperer cohort Alberta) looking like she just got laid.

Balfour enters and greets Pavla by the face.

This scene is full of interesting pairs and intriguing looks. I'm not saying that the Markos Tanzgruppe is a lesbian sex coven, but also that's exactly what I'm saying. I mean...

The dinner scene.

The witches need to get the dancers under a spell for the Sabbath, but how do they do it? Not with a look or a small gesture, as we've seen them perform other spells. They do it with seduction.

Also, Caroline's pipe is a choice, no?

Mia fucking Goth.

She is truly jaw-droppingly brilliant in this movie, the real MVP. During the course of Sara's journey, she needs to channel everything: desire, fear, giddiness, worry, grief...basically the whole gamut of human emotion. More than that, she has to convincingly dance and maintain a state of undeath. She does all of it so authentically that I am constantly taken aback by every bit of her performance. I honestly cannot get through the Mutterhaus hallway scene without crying; her screams and pleas for mercy cut right through me.

(Like, seriously: the best horror movie screaming? I've seen so many horror films (duh) and the good screamers are more rare than you'd think. There are several...but Mia Goth is another level. Maybe because it's not about a man or monster chasing her–it's fear and pain and Luca really gives her plenty of time to shine. It's harrowing in ways I can't even comprehend.)

But I wanted to talk about a couple of micromoments in the cake scene, where Dr Klemperer tells her about Patricia's notebook and she tells him to stop bothering her. I'm not going to examine the way she eats that cake, because my longtime cyberpal Jason of My New Plaid Pants recently wrote a terrific piece all about that very thing over at The Film Experience. Go read it. Go read all of his "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series. And everything else he's written!

In an interview, Goth described some of the background work she and Luca did for her character; you know, what was Sara's family like, what kind of person is she outside of the world of the movie, that type of actor stuff. The big takeaway: Sara's from a wealthy family. You get glimpses of it throughout the film–that wardrobe– but the entire cake scene really drives it home. I love how she conveys it through the tiniest of gestures, like the daintily raised fingers on her right hand as she eats, never quite resting on the plate or table:

Or the very well-mannered way she wipes up a few crumbs as she plots her escape from this nightmare meeting:

Those kinds of details can't be taught. They're not instructions given by the director. Okay, sometimes they are, but in those cases the moments come away as disingenuous. Sometimes you see the actress doing these things and they feel deliberate and inauthentic. In those cases, you can almost hear her process, you know what I mean? "On this word, I will touch the glass of water." That sort of thing.

The gestures Goth does here are natural and nuanced because she's so invested in the character that raising her fingers or wiping the crumbs very particularly become second nature. You don't always think about the way you wipe crumbs, do you? It's just how you wipe crumbs.

The planets definitely aligned for a lot of people on Suspiria. However she came to it, Mia Goth really connected with Sara Simms and thus, so do we. It's amazing. She's still so young, I can't wait to see all the great work she's going to do in what I hope is a long, long career.

This statue in the Mutterhaus art gallery.

Okay, I apologize: the Markos Tanzgruppe isn't a lesbian sex coven.

It's a creepy lesbian sex coven. But then, all the best ones are, I suppose.

SUSPIRIA Day 27: monsters and queens

Given that so many posts this month have featured Suspiria's major characters, I thought it was high time to discuss some of the Matrons who may not have as much screen time or dialogue–heck, sometimes you don't even catch their names–but they still manage to pierce your brain like a terrifying yet aesthetically pleasing hook. Each is given her moment(s) to really shine and serve as reminders that to put it mildly, there are no innocents at the Tanzgruppe. In fact, they'd just as soon eat your cunt on a plate as watch you dance because, as Rosemary Woodhouse might say, all of them witches.

Miss Boutaher (voted for Blanc)

Okay, I love Boutaher, speaking her French-inflected German with that deep voice. She gets a great introduction, waltzing into the building alongside Miss Vendegast; The two of them all messy-haired, looking and acting like they're cooler than you because guess what? They absolutely are.

They're certainly cooler than Susie at this point, and look, I know I've written about this scene several times before...but honestly, I probably could have spent 31 days writing about it alone because it has so many terrific moments of all kinds of flavors jammed into, like, five minutes. It's undoubtedly five of my favorite minutes in the film.

Anyway, Boutaher sets up this heavenly sequence by asking Susie "Where do you come from?"

"Ohio," Susie replies.

Boutaher huffs a scoff (or scoffs a huff, if you prefer) and leaves. I could talk for days about the way Dakota Johnson says "Ohio" here because it is perfect, a micromoment that is full of depth. She conveys shyness and embarrassment, but there's also a hint of that patented Susie Bannion fire underneath it, as if there's an "...and?" that's unsaid. And don't get me going about the way she's sitting on the edge of that chair or we will be here for days! The point is, Johnson is brilliant in a million different ways in Suspiria, and it's absurd to me that she's gone all but unrecognized for it.

No wait, that's not the point! The point is Miss Boutaher.

We don't see much of her after this introduction until after the Sabbath. She's the one who tells the dancers that Blanc has "left the Company," and the way she strolls into the studio and greets each girl in turn...well, it seems that for now, at least, Miss Boutaher is the Tanzgruppe's new Madame Blanc.

Miss Marks (voted for Markos)

If you listened to the first Suspiria episode of Gaylords of Darkness, then you know that Marks, aka DJ Witch, was my original aspiration. As I noted in my post about Miss Vendegast, Marks "sits around, playing music and watching rehearsals, smoking and looking sullen. She's in on all the action, but she doesn't have to do much." That seemed like the life for me: not having to clean up messes like Olga, never smiling, watching the women dance all day, sometimes maybe pressing a button.

Ultimately, though, Marks is decidedly less than "life" "goals." She voted for Markos and done got her head exploded, which, you know. No thank you. The very idea that she sat in that studio day after day, watching the creative process unfold, watching Blanc at work, and yet voted for Markos regardless is kind of delightfully passive-aggressive, though, so I still think she's rad.

Miss Pavla (voted for Markos)

Pavla is a big part of the reason why there's an Olga mess to clean up. As the dancer is on her way out of the "box of rabies," Pavla stops her on the staircase and facetiously asks if she's alright. Then we get a gorgeous, mesmerizing closeup as she casts a spell with that sound in the background–you know the one, it's sort of this Suspiria's version of the "Witch! Witch! Witch!" whispers in the Goblin soundtrack for the original film. (Incidentally, if you can manage it, it's worth watching this movie once whilst wearing headphones. The sound design is layered and rich and *chef kiss.*)

With the spell complete, Pavla laughs and continues on her way. Olga, meanwhile, now has her vision obstructed by goopy tears and, disoriented, continues on her way to becoming one of Auntie Anne's featured selections.

A few minutes later, Pavla joins a few others in the studio and...oh boy. That hook scene. I love the way it begins, with Pavla, Vendegast, Balfour, Alberta, and Millius gathered around Olga–who is still alive–looking...well, it's hard to discern what they're thinking, isn't it? We see each of them in turn and their faces are nigh unreadable. Pavla initially has an eyebrow cocked, then glances around almost nervously. Are they surprised by what Susie has done? Are they worried about repercussions in the Akademie and/or without? The moment just hangs there, keeping us in suspense over what they're going to do.

Then we find out: they're all monsters, every one of them. With menace and, perhaps more frighteningly, abject glee, they bury their hooks deep into Olga's flesh. They're adding more pain onto the unspeakable amounts she's already enduring, and they're enjoying it.

And, uh, Millius, right? (Voted for Markos.) That face. How is it that Alek Wek has been around since the 90s (a GD pioneering woman of color in the fashion industry, if you didn't know) standing nearly six feet tall with that face and this is her only juicy role? Bless Luca Guadagnino. When she appeared on screen the first time I saw this movie, I lost my fucking mind. Cinema desperately needs more dark-skinned Black women. I love Lupita Nyong'o as much as any rational person does, but she can't do all the heavy lifting.

And just to drive home how callous these women are, the next day we get a great little moment with Alberta (voted for Markos) as Tanner and Vendegast escort the two police detectives into the building. She enters frame from downstairs and after a long night of torturing Olga and inflicting indescribable horrors on her, Alberta yawns. Damn. Business as usual. Didn't get much sleep, I guess.

Miss Balfour (voted for Blanc)

Balfour is a whole lifestyle. She's got that butch prison matron vibe happening, with her gruff manner and chunky knits (50 shades of brown, natch). They way she nonchalantly–yet–boorishly sets about edging Sara out of the way and chopping Susie's hair, cigarette dangling, I love her.

That's to say nothing of her kicking off the Sabbath with that dirge. I take it back: Balfour isn't just a lifestyle, she's a lifestyle and a mood. You can hear this picture, can't you?

Miss Huller (voted for Markos)

Huller, Huller, Huller. Why did she have to break my heart by voting Markos and ending her astonishing career as a mess on the floor? Every time I watch this movie, I think we're going to get more Huller than we actually do. She was featured so prominently in the promotion of the film, yet she's a bit of a background witch...okay, maybe the background witch because hot damn, everything she does is amazing. Everything. First of all, she's another Company member who is much cooler than the rest of us. She is all effortless sex appeal, slinking around the dining room, smirking at everything. Huller can get it and she knows she can get it! An icon.

More than anyone else in the coven, Huller has a serious hate boner for Klemperer. She's the one who suggests that he be the witness for the Sabbath. When he arrives for Volk, she is all courtesy and light, showing him to his seat:

But she spends much of the performance glaring at him at best, casting a teeny-tiny choke a bit, why don't you spell on him at worst. I love all the glimpses of witchy power we get throughout the film, the little spells they cast. The Markos Tanzgruppe is no joke!

Later that evening, she skips the pre-Sabbath gropey dinner as along with Miss Alberta, she's charged with nabbing Klemperer. I can't sing Renée Soutendijk's praises high enough here; she's absolutely terrifying as she bursts through the doors of the Tanz building, screeching like a banshee, arms wide as she descends upon the hapless doctor. It's Suspiria's biggest "horror movie moment," practically a jump scare, and she is incredible.

As they drag him off to the Sabbath chamber, Klemperer pleads for mercy and Huller, spitting fire and brimstone, launches into a speech that, I admit, still colors my opinion of poor Josef:

What reason is there to pity you? You had years to get your wife out of Berlin before the arrests began. When women tell you the truth you don't pity them. You tell them they have delusions!

She ends it with a fucking cackle to end all cackles and oh, what a brilliant actress. What a marvel, making the most of one stunning showstopper of a scene. And that's before she ends up covered in blood and guts...and that's before, well she ends up nothing but blood and guts. Dammit, Huller! A queen, gone too soon.

That's right, a queen! A woman can be a monster and a queen. The Matrons of the Markos Tanzgruppe are all monsters, from the baby arm-riddled despot at the top all the way down to the sullen DJ who casts the wrong vote. They are monsters and queens, and I love them all endlessly.