Starring: Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Lutz Ebersdorf, Angela Winkler, Ingrid Caven, Elena Fokina, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk, Christine LeBoutte, Małgosia Bela, Jessica Harper, Chloë Grace Moretz
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Fantasy horror directed by Luca Guadagnino in a remake homage to the 1977 film of the same name by Dario Argento. A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the troupe’s artistic director, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), an ambitious young dancer Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), and a grieving psychotherapist, Dr. Jozef Klemperer (Lutz Ebersdorf). Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up. Suspiria (2018) follows Susie as she travels to Markos Dance Academy in Berlin, after which the artistic director, Madame Blanc, becomes fascinated with her dancing skills. After a series of mysterious disappearances among the students, Susie, her new friend, Sara (Mia Goth), and the elderly psychologist, Jozef Klemperer, find out the school may harbor dark secrets that could kill them all.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'Delusion is a lie that tells a truth.' - Dr. Klemperer (Suspiria) Share on X 'Love and manipulation, they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows.' - Dr. Klemperer (Suspiria) Share on X
Best Quotes
Patricia: There’s more in that building than what you can see. They’ve been underground since the war.
Dr. Klemperer: And you think they can hear you now?
Patricia: At the beginning, they gave me things. Perfect balance, perfect sleep. Talking with our minds. But they took my hair. They took my urine. They took my eyes. Now she can see me.
Patricia: [Klemperer] Mother Markos. Oh, she wants to get inside of me. I can feel her. Oh, I thought I wanted it. I let it happen.
Patricia: [to Klemperer] If they find out I was here, they won’t hesitate.
Patricia: [in German] They’ll hollow me out and eat my c*nt on a plate.
Madame Blanc: [to the other dancers] We have a new dancer. This is Susie Bannion, who’s joining us from America. I was privileged to witness her audition yesterday. We are very lucky to have her. Would you like to say something, Susie?
Susie: I don’t know. Hello. I feel like I’m not even here yet. I don’t know.
Madame Blanc: You join in whenever you feel ready, but there’s no rush. Welcome to our little family.
Madame Blanc: [to Susie] You don’t look better, or are you this pale all the time?
Madame Blanc: You’ve left religious thinking behind you, then? And you’re not comfortable talking about these things.
Susie: I don’t know why we are.
Madame Blanc: It’s difficult not to be curious about you. In two days, you’ve auditioned, been accepted and danced a lead. How did your journey towards us begin?
Susie: I went to New York, to the Martha Graham Center. I saw you there three times. I went once by bus, then I hitchhiked the other two.
Madame Blanc: That’s risky. Were you punished?
Susie: Yeah. But I felt I had to see you.
Madame Blanc: What did it feel today to dance Volkin front of the one who made it? No, no, that’s a vain question. Let me ask you another. When you were dancing, what did it feel like, inside you, inside your body?
Susie: It felt like what I think it must feel like to f***.
Madame Blanc: You mean to f*** a man?
Susie: No, I was thinking of an animal.
Dr. Klemperer: Delusion, Sara, is a lie that tells a truth.
Sara: The company’s a family. There’s a lot of love there.
Dr. Klemperer: Love and manipulation, they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows.
Madame Blanc: Part of the issue always is not being able to see your body in space. One angle in one mirror or on film is not enough. Movement is never mute. It is a language. It’s a series of energetic shapes written in the air, like words forming sentences. Like poems. Like prayers.
Susie: Spells?
Madame Blanc: When you jump, it’s not the height, but the space beneath you that matters. Every leap into the air must be a coup de foudre.
Susie: I don’t understand.
Madame Blanc: A strike of lightning. A bolt of love, in fact.
Susie: That’s beautiful.
Madame Blanc: There are two things that dance can never be again: beautiful and cheerful. Today, we need to break the nose of every beautiful thing. And if you’re going to be a dancer, you must learn French.
Madame Blanc: When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself so that her work can live within you. Do you understand?
Susie: Yeah.
Madame Blanc: You’re in a company now. You have to find your right place. You have to decide, what is it you want to be for this company? Is it the head? The spine? The sex? The heart?
Susie: The hands. I want to be this company’s hands.
Dr. Klemperer: Patricia wrote about Three Mothers lost in time, predating all Christian invention. Pre-God. Pre-Devil. Mother Tenebrarum, Mother Lachrymarum, and Mother Suspiriorum. Darkness, tears, and sighs.
Sara: I saw images of that last night. In porcelain, these very fine things. You can tell they have money.
Dr. Klemperer: Patricia said that Markos claims to be one of the Three. But there is dissent amongst them. She wrote about Markosites and Blancites. Internal division.
Sara: Madame Blanc’s involved in this? Do they believe they’re witches?
Dr. Klemperer: You can give someone your delusion, Sara. That’s religion. That was the Reich. The Reich had these things. Insignia. Esoteric ritual. These Mothers, yeah, they could be code names for founding members with metaphoric histories. I don’t know. But I do know you are living with dangerous people.
Sara: Patricia could still be in there. They could be holding her, in the building.
Dr. Klemperer: Well, I cannot promise that the authorities will come back to inspect a cabinet full of porcelain after all that has happened, but we can try. And in the meantime, you must take care of yourself. Perhaps you should leave. You have somewhere you can go?
Sara: I’ll figure it out.
Dr. Klemperer: [pointing to the item Sara has brought] And I think you should put this back. Or better still, you leave it here. Not good for them to know that you have it.
Sara: You’re making some kind of deal with them.
Susie: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sara: How can you know what they’re going to ask you in return?
Susie: Sara, whatever you have in your mind, nothing is wrong.
Sara: You just haven’t seen the bill yet.
Susie: Nothing’s wrong.
Susie: [to Madame Blanc telepathically] Did I hurt those people?
Madame Blanc: Not this time. They saw a dance. That’s all.
Susie: It’s all a mess, isn’t it? The one out there.
Susie: [out loud] The one in here. The one that’s coming. Why is everyone so ready to think the worst is over?
Miss Huller: [as Klemperer is ambushed by the matrons, in German] When women tell you the truth, you don’t pity them, you tell them they have delusions!
Susie: I’m ready, Madame. You look afraid.
Helena Markos: [referring to Blanc] She’s afraid for you. There will be nothing of you left inside. Only space for me.
Susie: I came here for this. You’ve all waited long enough.
Helena Markos: Ah! It is happening. It is happening!
Madame Blanc: You must have no doubts, Susie. If you do, I can take you back. I can take all of this from your head. You can forget everything. I want this to be pure.
Helena Markos: We all know what you want. This isn’t vanity. This isn’t art!
Madame Blanc: There is something wrong here. Can you not feel it? This is not right. We have to stop this now.
Helena Markos: We have been on two sides of this for too long now.
[Markos attacks Blanc, nearly decapitating her]
Susie: [to Klemperer] Your wife had two women with her as she died. Women she had befriended, who made her feel that she was not alone. Her final thoughts were of a birthday when you took her to a concert as a surprise. Chopin and Brahms. It was the first time you held her hand. She was cold when she died. But she wasn’t afraid. She was thinking only of you. Of Anke Meier, of Patricia Hingle, of Sara Simms, of Susanna Bannion, of all the women of your undoing, every memory will vanish. They will melt away in the sun and be gone.
Susie: [in German] We need guilt, Doctor. And shame But not yours.
[Susie steps away and Klemperer starts to seizure]
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