Week Five Witches

I watched Suspiria Directed by Dario Argento.

The film is really creepy and it’s not just the creepy that makes you jump. The movie really just builds a strong sense of unease and suspense throughout. There are several extremely grotesque murder scenes, in one instance a woman’s entire face is cut in half by a piece of glass, and the scene with the maggots on the ceilings was creepy on a visceral level. The colors are very saturated in this film and it feels almost like a live action version of a Disney movie. The compositions are similar to stylized illustrations, and sometimes the light sources make absolutely no sense. The blues and reds often overlap to create purple and everything is just super saturated inside the school. The colors and style have a strong fairytale quality and inspite of being so adult in content, overall the film has a lack of nudity or blatant sexuality. I feel that the palate and lighting create a nightmarish atmosphere for the witch’s drama to play out in.

I can see why Argento has been labeled the "Italian Hitchcock." The design of the film is on point; everything is meticulously designed down to the last detail. The film has an almost completely female cast and there are only a few male charters. In a 2009 interview Argento said of the male roles in the film: “One is blind, one can’t speak, and the other is gay. It’s the women who have all the power.”

I’m not familiar with any Of Argento’s other films but while researching him after watching Suspiria I came across several different blogs and articles accusing him of misogyny. There was a lively debate in the comments section of people defending or condemning his works. It definitely seems to be a horror genre trend to really draw out female deaths. However Suspiria has such a strong cast of female characters that I don’t think there is anything especially misogynistic about this particular film. Some of the death/horror scenes are drawn out and graphic but that would probably lead more to a debate about depictions of death in cinema then anything specifically to do with women. Most of the comments about Argento’s work being misogynistic related to other works in his filmography.