Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Landscapes of Horror

Tilda Swinton, perfectly cast as a dancer-choreographer, leads her troupe to hell in a g-string in Suspiria.

Luca Guadagnino sets his remake of Suspiria (2018) in a wintry world. Almost until the end, the palette is dominated by cool colors and muted pastels. It's a powerful contrast to the passions lurking beneath the surface in this tale of a dance company that's actually a front for a coven of witches. The women running the school glide through Berlin, with occasional outbursts of laughter, some of it sororal, some of it taunting, particularly when dealing with dancers who can't get with the program or men who, in their view, can't get with anything. The major burst of color is leading lady Dakota Johnson's red hair, which is a bit of foreshadowing.
At the center of all this is the relationship between choreographer Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) and new dancer Susie (Johnson). Johnson is a fantasy figure out of Fame (1982) or Flashdance (1983) — an untrained dancer who's all explosive instincts. It's a conceit that plays well with slackers, like the musical numbers that come together out of nowhere on Glee. You can sit and watch while telling yourself that you could do just as well if you wanted to. Fortunately, Johnson has enough energy and openness to pull it off. Guadagnino shoots most of the dances like music videos, so his percussive editing convinces you that she's a better dancer than she is. The result is a performance that pulls you in. Despite the tired trope, you find yourself caring about this young woman. That's important since the main tension in the plot is the growing awareness that the coven has chosen her as a sacrifice to restore the vitality of their ancient leader, Mother Markos (also Swinton).
In the 33 years since she made her film debut in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio (1986), Swinton has established herself as one of the most powerful presences on film. Playing four roles in Suspiria (or rather, three and a half, since one is barely defined) she shows that there's a lot of skill backing up that presence. As Madame Blanc, she effortlessly dominates a dance company run by eccentric types. She doesn't overstate anything. You can tell from her eyes and the set of her body that she sees something of herself in Susie, which helps get across the film's central conflict — the battle between factions of the coven over Susie's fate — without pounding the audience over the head. Even more impressive is her work as Dr. Klemperer, a male psychiatrist who's been treating a young dancer who sees through the dance company's façade. She doesn't just rely on the makeup (which is very good) to put the character across. She moves with the considered delicacy of the very old and speaks with a slight rasp. It takes a moment to recognize the voice as hers, and you can only spot the physical resemblance when she's in profile.
Guadagnino wanted Swinton to play the male psychoanalyst to reinforce the film's heavy focus on women. Apart from two police detectives who have only a few scenes, all of the major players are women. This helps clarify the film's central conflict, the battle between destructive and nurturing approaches to power. As the film starts, the coven has just elected Mother Markos as leader over Madame Blanc. The Markos faction views Susie as a sacrifice and urges Madame Blanc to get her ready quickly. Blanc wants to hold off the sacrifice to see Susie's full potential. This echoes the political turmoil of Germany in 1977. News reports about the Baader-Meinhof Group's hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 play in the background of several scenes. Klemperer is haunted by the loss of his wife when they attempted to flee the Third Reich near the end of World War II. This historical perspective underlines the film's focus on the abuse of power. It will take a cataclysm to wrest power from the patriarchal forces that traditionally hold it, and that's what the film moves toward at the end.
I must admit that I am not a fan of Dario Argento's original Suspiria (1977). I've given the film numerous viewings, trying to find something to justify the high esteem in which others hold it, but I just don't get it. There are other films of his I love — The Bird with Crystal Plumage (1970), Deep Red (1975), Opera (1987), the "Black Cat" segment of Two Evil Eyes (1990), Mother of Tears (2007) and particularly Phenomena (1985). In his best work, there's a kind of delirium that defies logic. They're like being caught in a fever dream that won't let you wake up. For me, his Suspiria starts high and has nowhere to go. You can't exactly build on the super-saturated colors or the gruesome murder of Patricia, the young dancer who attempts to escape the company at the film's start. Nor is there any real sense of environment. The film's set in a dance academy where nobody ever seems to dance, and it's next to impossible to imagine Joan Bennett's Madame Blanc was ever a dancer. She's just a stately set piece, used more for her association with Dark Shadows than anything she might contribute as an actress.
By contrast, Gaudagnino's Suspiria is all about dance. Swinton moves with a dancer's grace. The one truly gruesome scene in the film's first part is the torture of Olga (Elena Fokina), another rebellious dancer who tries to leave the company. Some unseen force pulls her into a mirrored rehearsal room she can't escape. As Susie takes over her leading role in the company's signature piece, Guadagnino cuts so that Susie’s moves seem to be twisting Olga's body until she's left a quivering ball of pain. It's a great, upsetting scene that maintains the picture's identity as a horror film and keeps you viewing as Guadagnino moves through the plot and intensifies his themes.
It's not all smooth sailing. Guadagnino sometimes thinks too much like a novelist rather than a director. The film is divided into six acts and an epilogue, with each segment announced by a cryptic title. Only the story doesn't really break conveniently into six parts. And the titles are rather a distraction, particularly in the epilogue, which is called "A Sliced-Up Pear." If you look closely, you can find the pear on a character's breakfast tray, but what exactly is that supposed to mean? There also are strange cut-ins of a farm-house somewhere that aren't properly contextualized until more than halfway through the film (it's the Mennonite family Susie left to join the dance company). It just seems to be getting in the way of the rest of the narrative until Guadagnino finally uses it to drop a kernel of information. It's also a little disconcerting that though the dance in the film is inspired by the work of female choreographers like Pina Bausch (who was the model for Swinton's Madame Blanc) and Mary Wigman, the film's admittedly effective choreography is the work of a man, Damien Jalet. Were all the female choreographers in Europe sick or busy when they were putting the film together or could only a man explain feminist dance to the audience?
For all that, the film still has a powerful effect. Guadignino has filled the picture with strong female presences, most notably Chloe Grace Moritz as the first student to rebel, Angela Winkler, Alek Wek, Renee Soutendijk and, from the first film, Jessica Harper. There's a sense of dread that builds persuasively, and the finale effectively ties together Guadagnino's ideas. It certainly deserved a better fate at the box office. Hopefully, it will make up for that in ancillary markets, where the slackers who can believe an untrained dancer could end up as good as Susie will be more likely to see it.

Zohra Lampert serves up exquisite horror in Let's Scare Jessica to Death.

Director John Hancock and cinematographer Robert M. Baldwin turn the beauties of the Connecticut countryside into a nightmare world in their independent horror film Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971). It's the kind of trick — finding horror in the everyday —Alfred Hitchcock honed to perfection. With its subtle questioning of reality, however, the film is closer to the literate, low budget psychological horror films Val Lewton produced at RKO in the 1940s.
Jessica (Zohra Lampert) has recently been released from a mental hospital. To help with her recovery, her husband (Barton Heyman) has left his position as a symphony bassist and sunk all of their savings into an isolated Connecticut farm. Before they even arrive, Jessica starts seeing strange things, but she can't tell if they're real or mark the return of her mental problems. When she finally does share what's she's seen, Heyman’s not sure he can believe her because of her past. Nor is her mood helped by the hostility of the locals, who view them as invading hippies. Eventually, she comes to believe a young woman (Mariclare Costello) whom they take in after finding her squatting in the farmhouse is a vampire who has taken control of all the men around her.
Hancock pulls off a terrific balancing act. You're never sure if what you're seeing is real or Jessica's delusions. Even when we see things she couldn't see, as when an antique dealer they've befriended is haunted by a strange underwater figure or Costello seduces Heyman, there's the suspicion that we're just seeing more of her fantasies. By the end, when Jessica has either succumbed to madness or seen her world destroyed by the vampire, we're left wondering, like her, "Dreams or nightmares? Madness or sanity? I don't know which is which."
Let's Scare Jessica To Death was made just as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its imitators were bringing the commodification of gore to the horror genre. With its low budget and disreputable genre, it wasn't taken very seriously on its initial release, though it has achieved some measured status as a cult film and is highly respected by filmmakers. Were a film of comparable quality made today, it could easily be in line for major awards consideration, something that would have been unheard of in 1971. Of course, if it were made today, it would be missing its best element, Lampert.
Lampert's Jessica isn't just one of the most fully rounded characters in the horror genre. Her performance is one of the best you're going to find anywhere. From her first scene, when she almost dances with delight as her husband stops their hearse (it's the cheapest vehicle they could find) at a rural cemetery so she can make a headstone tracing, she has the character down to the smallest gesture. Jessica is brimming with a childlike energy and openness that leaves her vulnerable to everything happening around her, and Lampert registers all of it in her face and body. Throughout the film, we hear her thoughts on the soundtrack. It's a tricky device that could sink a less talented actor. If you've ever suffered through the film version of Strange Interlude (1932), you know just how bad a bad voiceover can be, like the worst radio drama played over actors mugging painfully. But Lampert delivers her stream-of-consciousness monologues simply, trusting herself and the audience to follow the character's inner life at the speed of thought. It's an intelligent, deeply empathic performance that makes the film unforgettable.
The whole picture reeks of that kind of intelligence. This isn't the anything-for-an-effect world of Poltergeist (1982), where magic and the supernatural are used as an excuse for lack of logic. Hancock and screenwriter Lee Kalcheim have created a very specific type of vampire and don’t need to spell it out for the audience. Like good playwrights, they leave all the clues for the audience to assemble. These vampires are day walkers, and you can recognize them by the scars the original bloodsucker leaves on her victims. It isn’t long before the mere sight of a healed wound on someone is enough to send a chill through the audience. It’s reminiscent of the way Val Lewton’s directors (Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson) could use a well-placed shadow or a simple sound effect to send audiences round the bend without upstaging the underlying Stoicism of the films. In the same way, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is certainly frightening enough, but its real goal isn’t just cheap scares. It’s aimed more at creating an overwhelming sense of dread about a world that can never be completely known. Dreams or nightmares? Madness or sanity? What does it matter when you’re poor Jessica caught up in the moment?




The Round-Up: October 9—15

This was my theater week in New York city, so there's only one new film review, two from the archives and six plays, five on- and one of...