Suspiria (2018) ***1/2
My initial review of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018), one of my Top Films Of 2018, can be found here.
I’ve cooled a bit on the film for this “Take 2” viewing. This time around I found myself distracted by the dismally drab color pallet and overly dim cinematography. Part of this could be down to Amazon’s poor compression, even for their 4K offering, but there is no doubt that the film has a deliberately dark transfer. The darkest scenes in the film obviously suffer the most but it still blows my mind that the majority of people think streaming quality is acceptable as an accurate representation of an artist’s vision.
I also found the lengthy exposition dumps by the coven to be a weak point, not adding much to the narrative. These happen frequently over scenes involving a great deal of action and/or juxtaposed by jarring cuts to other scenes, which makes it difficult to focus on one or the other. I think that aim at disorientation is intentional—it just doesn’t work for me as an artistic choice.
As on my first viewing, I don’t find that the political backdrop adds anything to the central story but thankfully it’s kept to a minimum. I was even less taken by the Josef Klemperer storyline this time as well, never finding it explored satisfactorily, in relation to the film as a whole.
I can’t help but find that lots of little things could have been left out to cut down on the film’s length, which is bit bloated. This includes the epilogue, which I liked even less this go around. The audacious set piece that precedes the epilogue should be the film’s showstopper but instead it’s kind of a mess due to its muddled execution. That’s a shame because it’s pretty crazy in theory and it could have been truly special with a little more finesse. Still, I can’t help but marvel at the ideas behind it.
All that said, I do think that Suspiria is a great, if divisive, film and, as I mentioned in my first review, I applaud the director for forging his own path. There are undoubtedly impressive visuals and editing on display. Motion (in particular dance) and sound play a pivotal part in S18 and it is undeniably an intense sensory experience. It’s far from perfect and I find myself equally as attracted to aspects of the film as I am put off by others but I think that’s what makes it worth revisiting. It’s both a beautiful and ugly piece of impressionist art which makes it hard to assign a star rating that accurately represents my feelings toward it.
I’ve cooled a bit on the film for this “Take 2” viewing. This time around I found myself distracted by the dismally drab color pallet and overly dim cinematography. Part of this could be down to Amazon’s poor compression, even for their 4K offering, but there is no doubt that the film has a deliberately dark transfer. The darkest scenes in the film obviously suffer the most but it still blows my mind that the majority of people think streaming quality is acceptable as an accurate representation of an artist’s vision.
I also found the lengthy exposition dumps by the coven to be a weak point, not adding much to the narrative. These happen frequently over scenes involving a great deal of action and/or juxtaposed by jarring cuts to other scenes, which makes it difficult to focus on one or the other. I think that aim at disorientation is intentional—it just doesn’t work for me as an artistic choice.
As on my first viewing, I don’t find that the political backdrop adds anything to the central story but thankfully it’s kept to a minimum. I was even less taken by the Josef Klemperer storyline this time as well, never finding it explored satisfactorily, in relation to the film as a whole.
I can’t help but find that lots of little things could have been left out to cut down on the film’s length, which is bit bloated. This includes the epilogue, which I liked even less this go around. The audacious set piece that precedes the epilogue should be the film’s showstopper but instead it’s kind of a mess due to its muddled execution. That’s a shame because it’s pretty crazy in theory and it could have been truly special with a little more finesse. Still, I can’t help but marvel at the ideas behind it.
All that said, I do think that Suspiria is a great, if divisive, film and, as I mentioned in my first review, I applaud the director for forging his own path. There are undoubtedly impressive visuals and editing on display. Motion (in particular dance) and sound play a pivotal part in S18 and it is undeniably an intense sensory experience. It’s far from perfect and I find myself equally as attracted to aspects of the film as I am put off by others but I think that’s what makes it worth revisiting. It’s both a beautiful and ugly piece of impressionist art which makes it hard to assign a star rating that accurately represents my feelings toward it.
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