Anatomy of a Scene: the final ritual in Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Suspiria’
While Dario Argento’s 1977 original version of Suspiria is championed as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, it’s difficult to look beyond Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake, starring Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Tilda Swinton and Chloe Grace Moretz, as perhaps being the superior work.
A feud of sorts has ensued since the release of Guadagnino’s effort between the faithful fans of Argento’s original and those who admired the newer narrative theme of historical guilt in the 2018 version. But whichever side of the fence one sits, one simply must hold respect for one of the greatest cinematic horror moments ever made in Guadagnino’s final ritual scene.
Today, we’re going to dissect that scene and explore its themes and motifs. Let’s begin: Our protagonist Susie Bannion has joined the Markos Dance Academy in Berlin in the 1970s. She establishes herself as one of the most talented dancers in the group, not knowing that it is led by a coven of witches with Madame Markos serving as the head, having previously been for over Madame Blanc.
The witches run the dance academy primarily for the purpose of finding a young body for Markos to inhabit through a demonic ritual ceremony. By the time we arrive at the ritual scene, Susie is in no doubt as to the real purpose of the academy. She finds her way down into the ceremony room beneath the school, but she seems to have no fear at what she sees, imbued with new supernatural strength.
The dancers are engaged in an expert Damien Jalet-choreographed ritual before a severely disfigured Markos and an anxious-looking Blanc, who now perceives Susie in a new light, understanding her inner change. There’s a beautiful symmetry to proceedings and an unbridle demonic sexual energy that drips off each wall.
The source of this feminine energy seems to come from the naked Joseph Klemperer, who’d been wracked with guilt ever since being separated from his wife during World War II. He sits naked on the floor, weeping. One of the dancers is suddenly brutally disembowelled; this is clearly a ritual that thrives on human flesh, and death is its central ingredient.
Susie informs Blanc that she is “ready”, but for what exactly? For Markos to take over her body? Surely, she would not be so willing to give herself up for the academy’s leader. But there’s a real calmness to Susie, and she tells Blanc that she “looks afraid”. Possessed chanting cranks up the tension, echoing throughout the cavernous chamber as though from some dimension beyond our darkest reckoning. Shit is clearly about to go down.
Markos squeals in delight, “It is happening!” Demonic singing, rich and violent, the spasms and incantations of the dancers, all juxtaposed with the calm solemnity of Susie. Blanc tells her she must come to this ritual with “no doubts”; that she does not have to go through with it should her wishes not be “pure”.
Markos quickly responds by severing the head of Blanc, and blood spurts everywhere in thin patterns. Markos asks Susie to abandon her “false mother”, at which point a red filter descends over the scenes. A new entity has joined the fray to the high-pitch screams of the witches and dancers.
A demonic figure then appears, Death incarnate, straight out of Guillermo del Toro’s worst nightmares and tells Susie, “I’m ready, Madame”. Susie is no longer just a traumatised dancer from Ohio but the reincarnation of Mother Suspiriorum, a pre-Christian deity whom the coven worship. The demon kisses Markos to death, and she withers away on the floor, yielding to the power of Susie.
The demon performs Susie/Suspirorum’s bidding now and gives the kiss of death to each of the witches who voted for Markos over Blanc. Susie touches herself in an almost sexual manner. The erotic physicality of the scene is almost overwhelming, yet one cannot quite draw their eyes away. The violence ramps up; the demon no longer kisses but rather explodes the heads of various witches with just the point of a long barbed and blackened finger.
But there’s a tenderness to proceedings too, elevated by Thom Yorke’s beautiful piano soundtrack theme ‘Unmade’. There’s a beautiful contrast; the sheer depravity and the violence, the undoubted sadness of Yorke’s cries, all cut to a stuttering camera. Bodies fall to the floor; Susie looks calm, now accepting of her new power, her new self and the death of the old.
She tears at her chest, pulling it apart to the sound of a thousand souls escaping her cavity. Then, an act of kindness. She gracefully walks the chamber, asking her former-fellow dancers just what it is that they want; all make one simple request: death.
Susie/Suspiriorum obliges, granting them a peaceful end and releasing them from the horror that surrounds them. Suspiriorum is not merely a deity that causes violence and brings about the end but is one capable of compassion, too, particularly to those who are deserving of it.
Yorke sings gloriously while the dancers thrash around in demonic possession. “It’s beautiful,” says Susie. Then, the red filter blinks off, and Klemperer awakens and is released from the academy, shocked to the core, unaware of whether all of this was a terrible nightmare.
The scene is one of the greatest moments of horror ever conceived, gloriously directed by Luca Guadagnino, performed by the cast, and scored by Yorke. It’s a scene that stays with you long after the first time you’ve watched it, forever perhaps, as though we, too, have been possessed by Mother Suspiriorium.
