O Suspiria! Fascism and Feminism in Luca Gaudagnino's 2018 Remake
Not only will art not "save us," but artists can be part of the problem
by Tom Blunt
Fans of the original Suspiria film understandably presumed themselves to be the target audience for a remake, but many ended up complaining about the longer and meatier 2018 version, deeming it unnecessary for the story to be “about” much beyond the wisp of a fairytale introduced by Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi in 1977, in which a young American woman wanders in and out of the grasp of witches who have disguised their coven as a ballet academy in Berlin.
But these days, horror can rarely be counted upon for pure escapism. The genre has become more explicitly queer and political than ever before, and bravo! And whether you like it the remake or not, Americans ought to look closer before questioning its artistic pedigree: it was made primarily by Europeans and set in post-war Europe, with a 21st century view of everything that era signified — a view which has allowed the artists to comment on historical events quite differently (and in some ways more clearly) than films made during that period, connecting dots with the current resurgence of fascism in the US and Europe.
Anyone who doubts this is an appropriate choice for a Suspiria remake, I only ask that you consider it firmly within genre tradition. How often have we seen a masterpiece of artistic, low-budget schlock resurface as a piece of expensive, knowingly schlocky art? Decades of fandom and criticism imbue classic films with new layers of meaning, practically demanding that a retelling be “about” something more than the original text, even if it “betrays the spirit of the original film” (as Argento himself lamented about the new Suspiria).
Fans tend to be equally suspicious of films that swing the other way into pure homage, such as Gus Van Sant’s Psycho, or Rob Zombie’s Halloween, which have their fans, but inevitably left many asking: “Why bother remaking this at all, when the original did the same thing, but better? Why not just make something new?”
Gaudagnino’s Suspiria slyly splits the difference with a story about the way history repeats itself, and also about the diminishing returns of revisiting popular works of art. (In fact, much of the film is set around a staging of a modern dance that the witchy Markos company originally choreographed during the Third Reich.)
But this is why no remake or sequel can win over everyone. Even the unequivocal smash-hit and technical triumph Mad Max: Fury Road left fans arguing about its proper place within the “Mad Max” franchise. This is part of what makes Suspiria 2.0 such an audacious achievement, because it’s hard to think of a single criticism that Luca Gaudagnino or his cast and crew could not have anticipated. They must have understood that everything they introduced or reimagined would have to stand on its own. And if you read David Kajganich’s script, you may be impressed by the ambition that on display from the beginning. The text fairly oozes with new lore, feverishly devoted to fleshing out the bare bones of the old lore.
One of the most reliable ways for 21st century horror auteurs to justify revisiting the past is to subvert the male gaze that’s notoriously embedded in the genre’s history. A comparable example is Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, an “original” story assembled from time-honored horror tropes and a classical ballet storyline (the film’s score, a sublimely shattered reimagining of Swan Lake, was ultimately deemed not original enough to compete for an Academy Award).
Black Swan eagerly referenced O.G. Suspiria, dwelling on the body horror that’s innate to extremely physical art forms, and how an artist risks having their identity devoured by their artistic passion — particularly in insular and competitive communities made up of other artists. Once upon a time, subplots like the main character’s nascent lesbian awakening would have been left to subtext, or included purely for the purposes of male arousal. And those scenes in Black Swan are still decidedly boner-friendly (during one screening I attended, a male usher managed to time his house checks to precisely coincide with Natalie Portman’s masturbation scene, and then her sex scene with Mila Kunis).
But nevertheless, Aronofsky managed to serve up flesh and sex and agony in a way that welcomed and included female insight, both artistically and in the audience. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Portman characterized her working relationship with the director: “He would always be like, Now that we’ve done what I have, now do one for yourself.”
Image from Suspiria (1977)
In the case of Suspiria, the goal of looking beyond the male gaze is basically what allows this new story to be “about” anything at all. For example: the role of art and artistry in purging generational trauma; or the way that artists, women, and/or religious devotees can be seduced into participating in fascism. These are fertile territories for horror stories to explore! Otherwise, what would we have left to sink our teeth into? Yet another voyeuristic glimpse at attractive young women losing their autonomy and wandering through a razor-maze of body horror? And is anyone really still that scared of witches?
Well, perhaps they should be. Though director Luca Gaudagnino definitely has an eye for the erotic, there’s far less for the heterosexual male gaze in his Suspiria. You’ll see athletic bodies, suggestive costuming, sensual dancing, and plenty of homoerotic subtext, but these are faithfully presented as practical expressions of dance as an art form, and witchcraft as a complex sorority.
His strongest renunciation of 1970s sexual politics is probably the moment early on when the coven foils a pair of police investigators who have arrived to inquire about one of their missing students. After putting the officers in some kind of trance, the older women strip them from the waist down and delight in mocking their flaccid genitals, even prodding at them with one of their silver rib-shaped hooks (the witches’ signature weapon, unique to the 2018 film).
But Gaudagnino’s mission here isn’t just to kill boners, or even to reverse sex standards by thrusting men into situations of emasculated full-frontal nudity (though he accomplishes both). These few seconds of the film are actually highly informative, revealing how this coven’s members conduct themselves privately, out of sight of their neophytes, accountable only to themselves. This is how they wield absolute power: in demonstrations that include torture, sexual assault and humiliation.
The scene is also a test for protagonist Susie Bannion, the wide-eyed new student who surreptitiously glimpses these acts. How will this affect her view of the community she’s now at the center of, and her relationship with its leaders? In the moment, her reaction remains stifled, hidden from us; her judgment is withheld until much later on.
It also tests us, the viewers, who are likely to indulge in a vicarious thrill from watching law-enforcement officers being toyed with by a bunch of seemingly harmless old ladies, from watching “powerful” men stripped bare and prodded insensitively. Susie’s shock and the witches’ amusement so readily become our own!
This is a classic element of horror storytelling, slyly inviting us (the powerless) to question the satisfaction we derive from outlandishly sadistic fantasies, especially if the victim is an enemy. Which is funny, since we know the witches are responsible for the disappearance of the young girl, and the police (in this instance) are justified in their investigation. Even the worst monsters sometimes victimize the right people — the ones who “deserve it.” This is why it matters to know who’s telling the story.
Gradually we understand that what we’ve seen is an expression of the witches’ diseased leadership under the mysterious Helena Markos: a self-proclaimed embodiment of Mother Suspiriorum, one of three ancient, powerful witches who stealthily use their magic to manipulate the world (known as the “Three Mothers” in Dario Argento’s mythos, the core ideas of which were provided by his former partner and fellow screenwriter Daria Nicolodi, whose contributions he has consistently failed to credit, across several films).
Forced out of public view due to the degradation of her physical body, Markos’s authoritarian presence is still intensely felt throughout her dance academy, which is nevertheless showing signs of internal political strain. The company’s artistic director, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) is the heir apparent, and her high regard in the eyes of students and the other witches has created a painful rift in the coven, which reveals itself to be just as divided as the rest of Berlin. The group is struggling to evolve, but remains uncomfortably tethered to the past.
At the beginning of the film, we listen in as the witches vote democratically on their leadership. Markos holds the majority… but it’s close. Since the head witch will never willingly relinquish power, Blanc is resigned to working within the established order, which she is not strong enough (magickally or morally) to oppose. She’s forced to remain in a submissive position to a monstrous figure, and to participate in atrocities that will only serve to increase Markos’s longevity.
What is the coven’s overarching agenda? Here’s one character’s explanation: “Change violent enough to take us back to a time of matriarchies. The question was whether to enact this change in moderation from the shadows, or step into a new era of public work and constant recruitment. She talks about ‘Markosites’ who were for the formers and ‘Blancites’ who were for the later.”
This is one of the many invocations of right-versus-left political struggles that creep into the movie — along with the notorious “German Autumn” clashes of 1977 which serve as the historical backdrop for the film, the 17th century Amish/Mennonite split that Susie cites as her cultural origin — and we, watching from 2018 onward, with the tide of fascism actively rising all around us, recognize that our own condition is being referenced as well.
At the very threshold of her emerging powers, Susie seems to speak of our world in these words to Blanc: “It's all a mess: The one out there. The one in here. The one that's coming… Why are people always so ready to think the worst is over?”
Image from Suspiria, (2018)
And all of this, I’d be crazy to deny, is a perfect example of what many fans and critics have insisted was NOT necessary for a Suspiria remake. Audiences were not prepared to absorb this level of detail related to the political striations within a fictional witch coven, or moral lessons for the 21st century from a fraught period in post-war Germany. And while Gaudagnino’s dreamy, disjointed storytelling is effectively witchy and horrifying, many of the story’s finer points are only fully accessible upon repeat viewing — a big ask, due to the film’s 2.5 hour running time. And if someone didn’t connect with the film in the first place, why would they line up to go on the ride again?
Well, here are some incentives! For starters, it will literally always be available on Amazon Prime. (The mega-retailer-turned-studio produced the film.) And since it’s broken up into chapters, you can always just watch it episodically if you prefer.
Also, for reasons that should be obvious, the film has only become more relevant since its release. Earlier in 2020, when the podcast “Gaylords of Darkness” invited Gaudagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich to discuss the film at length, their recording happened to coincide with the national upheaval over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers (as well as numerous other high-visibility victims of police brutality, such as Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain). We are still witnessing the effects of this protest movement many months later, and public demonstrations are now a common sight in cities across the US.
This podcast discussion also offered various reasons why politics will always be part of the conversation about this film, and how this is a deliberate response to the fantasy bubble-world of Argento’s version, which Gaudagnino describes as inherently “conservative.”
In Gaudagnino and Kajganich’s version, every character can be evaluated based on their response to creeping fascism, whether in the Markos academy or the regular world. And most of them end up facing judgment for those responses, in one way or another. Suspiria presents this kind of judgment as one that can be deferred, but not indefnitely; whether one can appeal for a more merciful judgment remains a probing spiritual question that the film only hints at answering in the very end. Here are some thoughts about several of the main characters:
MARKOS
The pestilential Mother Markos is barely seen throughout the film, but there’s plenty we can tell about her just by the behavior of her followers. Like so many would-be dictators, Markos’s leadership is both authoritarian and also strangely absentee (a tactic which allows leaders a margin of plausible deniability when called to take responsibility for the actions of their acolytes).
She’s ever-present in the witches’ thoughts — sometimes literally, as we see examples of the coven communicating and observing each other telepathically. Her followers call her “Mother,” which Blanc bridles at in the script: “It’s offensive. If Markos was truly a Mother, we wouldn’t need to save her life.”
In the podcast interview I linked above, Gaudagnino emphasizes that the Suspiria witches do not exist in opposition to any particular human ideology: they are entirely separate from it. However, they’re still a company made up of humans (or beings which were once human), and the mounting similarities between the Markos company and the war-torn world just outside their door is perhaps the greatest sign that something crucial in the coven’s mission has slipped. Naturally, this is blamed on external influences; when their rituals to restore Markos fail, they blame the quality of the “vessels,” the young women in their care, who surrender all autonomy and are left disfigured and “hollowed out” by the attempts to make room for Markos in their bodies.
These gathering doubts are painfully represented onscreen when Miss Griffith — the company’s secretary and a dedicated Markosite, who has grown more visibly distraught from scene to scene — suddenly stabs herself in the throat at the breakfast table. Her body is disappeared and she is never mentioned again. There are no failures under autocratic rule, just temporary setbacks that someone else is to blame for.
Madame Blanc marionette created by Handsome Devils Puppets
BLANC
The role of a lifetime for Tilda Swinton (even though her entire career is made up of them) and here’s why: Madame Blanc is a little of everything, with enough mystique to merit an entire prequel spinoff series. She’s a monster and a mother, an artist and leader, a frustrated idealist who has lapsed into the position of a servile centrist in the Markos witch family.
We know very little of Blanc’s history, except that one of her masterworks, a dance piece called “Volk”, was originally created in response to the Reich. This helps us shift our appreciation of who the witches are, and what they could actually achieve under more sincere leadership. Early on, Blanc lectures Susie about the significance of “Volk” and how its choreography is laden with physical expressions of political resistance: “Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth. But, we must aim upwards. We need to get you in the air.”
Whether she sees it or not, Blanc too is another such arrow. Physically grounded by age and protected by a position of relative power and privilege in the company, she can still see “Volk” as a form of radical expression. But it’s unclear if she senses the irony in how the significance of "Volk" has changed over time. Originally, her dance — full of militant configurations and deathly imagery — might have held up a mirror to the Reich’s manipulation of the German people. Thirty years later, however, it is used as an intstrument of torture against performers in the troupe (which Blanc cautiously attributes to the "power" of the dance) and a way to groom young bodies for hijacking in predatory rituals. “Volk” has become indistinguishable from that which it sought to rebuke.
Outwardly, Blanc commends direct action. Of the missing Patricia, whose absence has been attributed to the demonstrations raging outside, Blanc disengenuously comments: “She wanted to do something with her beliefs. We can all admire that. And there are changes to be made, no question. But if she’s in some cellar filling Beamiester bottles with petrol, that’s her choice. Who won’t be sad if she’s shot by the polizei, but what can we do?”
But in practice, Blanc seems to recommend transforming culture through indirect and insular means, such as artistic expression. Protest is happening on the world stage, blaring from every radio and television in Berlin, but the final revival of Blanc’s masterwork is quietly presented to a small recital audience.
This display of the powerful behaving as if they are powerless seems to take direct aim at the way liberals respond to calamity with cries of “Art can save us!” But anyone who’s met (or can even name) even five artists will remind you that they aren’t inherently “good” or altruistic people. Artists can be opportunistic, they can be delusional about the clarity and importance of their message, or the impact it’s likely to have, and upon whom. The inherent nobility of art — and its ability to ennoble those who consume it — is a very dangerous thing to rely on in the fight against oppression.
In the 21st century, art institutions are aiding and abetting oppression just as flagrantly as ever. Art schools are preying on students; art markets are still bankrolling horrible people and essentially fracking every artistic medium, expanding rarified markets that widen class divisions, and churning out nostalgia and faddish examples of “beauty” for popular consumption, all while suppressing artists who critique the system or create art that articulates questions about how we got here.
As for artists themselves, there is often a desire to organize, compete, and build community, but these too can tilt toward fascism, or create conditions that shelter powerful figures from criticism. Artists seek pure expression through imperfect means, which can mirror the way that political ideology gathers behind imperfect movements. Not only can art not save us, but there seems to be an awful lot of art being made that shows how people may be victimized or devoured by artistic pursuits.
The examples of mainstream art that try to reference this moral quagmire often end up being hit-or-miss. Recent-ish movies like Velvet Buzzsaw and The Neon Demon have attempted to camp it up and depict art institutions as the purveyors of actual, supernatural evil. Once you start noticing, isn’t it amazing to see how much arthouse horror is about the arthouse?
The new Suspiria presents Blanc as a powerful figure nobly struggling to beat back fascism within the constraints of a democratic system, but she’s a compromised figure. She’s stuck in a terrible middle place of tugging ever leftward, while also resisting the potential for change signified by Susie’s awakening power — which Blanc detects, and nurtures. But then she tries to forestall the inevitable coup in the film’s final chapter, and she pays dearly for it.
But hey, “that’s her choice!”
SUSIE
It’s unclear how many of the young dancers in the Markos company are being groomed as fully-fledged members in its coven, or what the path to membership might look like. For the most part, the young women remain oblivious to any danger from within — the school is “safe” compared to the world outside, which is a common cult mentality. Meanwhile, those who suspect anything have a funny way of vanishing almost immediately. Suffice to say that the internal political pressures felt by the Markosite witches end up manifesting unconsciously among the dancers, leading many of them to harm.
Suspiria takes great pains to show how the psychological surrender required to study closely under a master isn’t altogether different than the requirements that prepare one for ritual sacrifice. This is a familiar trope in martial arts films as well: the cleansing of the neophyte, breaking down their body as well as their mind so they can be rebuilt in a purer form, allowing the master’s teachings to flow directly through them. “When you dance the dance of another,” Blanc instructs Susie, “You make yourself in the image of its creator.” This is as much a warning as it is an encouragement. Notably absent is the suggestion that Susie, or any of the other girls, will eventually create their own dance.
Throughout the film we watch as Susie, the only authentically empowered girl in the studio, is seduced into serving as a tool of fascism, as well as a victim of it. There’s a switcheroo for the audience here: her version of the familiar training montage ends up being subverted when it’s revealed [SPOILER] that she, in fact, is the true avatar of Mother Susupiriorum. In Kajganich’s script, the student is not strictly beholden to the master after all. Tradition exists to be questioned, and false authority challenged — with violence if necessary.
This is part of what anchors the film in the tradition of feminist storytelling. Which may be what some viewers were unconsciously reacting to, in this stark departure from Argento’s vision. There is no loyalty to the “father” figure here; the story has been reclaimed by those who actually know something of feminine power, and wish to pursue “change violent enough to take us back to a time of matriarchies.”
As a result, the lessons from Susie’s training have less to do with “What can witches do?” and are more about “How do truly powerful beings behave?”
Rewatching this film, knowing who/what Susie truly is, her curious blankness makes so much more sense. The actions of others aren’t threatening to her, because she contains her own pure sense of authority. At the climax of the film, when she delivers her verdict on the Markosites, there is no need for her to call for other witnesses. She is powerful within herself; whereas the Markosites, in their own sort of kangaroo court, have taken the elderly Klemperer prisoner to serve as a ceremonial “witness” to their ritual. Their leader is a parody of a mother, and their rituals are a parody of self-empowerment.
Susie’s appearance in the much-lamented coda of the film (more on this in a moment) is a demonstration of how truly powerful beings might behave, and serves as an indictment of everything we’ve witnessed from the Markosites. “I wasn’t yet in a position to prevent what my daughters did to you,” she says to Klemperer, “But I regret it. Truly. I want to make it up if I can.”
Showing that her power isn’t diminished by gestures of mercy is the greatest flex of all, and is the truest sign of a political sea change for the coven. To me, it called to mind the conclusion of the 1989 black comedy Heathers, in which Veronica (Winona Ryder, also of Black Swan fame) emerges from her own ceremonial orgy of violence, smudged with blood and ashes, reborn as one who’s finally capable of wielding the power that’s been dangled in front of her since the beginning, but which she was reluctant to grasp.
Encountering her former rival in the hallway, Veronica greets her with a kiss, and says: “Heather my love, there's a new sheriff in town.”
For the first time, a Heather is rendered speechless. What more needs to be said?
KLEMPERER
At eighty years old, Dr. Klemperer is still unable to forgive himself for selfishly (depending on who you ask) waiting too long to help his wife Anke flee Berlin during WWII, despite her misgivings. The judgment he faces is largely self-induced, and the Markos coven are able to use this to manipulate him. In the film’s final scene, as the true Mater Suspiriorum relieves him of his self-judgment, she says (in German, notably): “We need guilt, Doctor. And shame. But not yours.”
This coda remains one of the film’s most-criticized elements. It’s a downbeat epilogue to a rather long film, and concludes a storyline that, on the surface, appears to have little to do with Susie or the witches. However, it definitely serves to contrast the differences between human awareness and that of the Mothers and their followers. Guilt is something that belongs to us; Klemperer’s eighty years are nothing to some of these witches, and yet his years are very long because of the heavy burden he carries. The witches, being practically ageless as well as guiltless, seem unencumbered by the past. Susie’s reconciliation with Klemperer is a rare showing of what interactions between humans and supernatural beings could look like, if we were able to regard each other properly.
Horror elements from the script that didn’t make it into this scene involve Suspiriorum physically transforming in the room with Klemperer, revealing her true form: “Her silhouette begins to change as she exerts herself. He can see the outline of Mother Suspiriorum--the halo of darkness.” There is also greater emphasis placed on the knife sitting in the dish by Klemperer’s bedside, which suggests the risk that, in a state of psychological torment, Klemperer may seize it and harm himself, or lash out at Suspiriorum. The script even comments on how she “savors his pain,” even as she relieves it.
The filmmakers seem to have ultimately erred on the side of restraint in each of these areas — perhaps to avoid diminishing the seriousness of Susie/Suspiriorum’s monologue about Anke’s final moments in the Theresienstadt concentration camp? So while Mater Suspiriorum may not be human per se, she delivers her judgment in human form. In the Gaylords podcast, the screenwriter himself deemed the ambiguity in that scene to be “politically necessary.”
While the script was written by an American, this is an area where I’m also happy to defer to the sensibility of the film’s European artists, whom I think were best able to see beyond Suspiria’s value as a horror yarn for impatient American thrill-seekers who were (and are still, currently) being slowly boiled in fascism like the fabled frog in the kettle. The results of the 2020 Presidential election show just how many of them are unwilling, if not unable, to leap out.
So what we have instead is a towering presence of a film that teeters, like our whole world does, on an uneven base, straining higher than it can quite reach. But height isn’t everything. As Blanc chides Susie early on, when it matters most: “You’re mistaking a limitation for an artistic preference.”
The Suspiria auteurs laid their trap carefully; it would be a tragedy to mistake their artistic preferences for limitations.