Page 112 - Time Magazine-November 05, 2018

MOVIES
To Indiana
farmland,
with purpose

Frederick Wiseman
has been making
documentaries for more
than 50 years, and the
subjects he chooses—the
New York Public Library, a
small Texas boxing gym—
sometimes don’t seem
big enough to fill a whole
movie canvas. But once
you follow his curious eye,
and see what he sees, you
know why you’re looking.
In Monrovia, Indiana, he
and his cameras move
into a small farming
town, sitting in on Lions Witch hunt: Johnson gets twisted in Suspiria
Club meetings, checking MOVIES
out the funnel cakes and A vibrant classic reanimated
auto decals at the annual
town fair, and sometimes as a cold, beige corpse
just taking in the vista
of corn and other crops Girl Goes to ballet school run by elite dance academy where Susie goes
that farmers grow there. witches. Now there’s an elevator pitch for to study. (She’s also a witch, of course,
What do people care you, and it pretty much covers the plot of and in a media-baiting twist dons heavy
about? What do they spend Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo masterstroke makeup to portray character actor
their money on? What do Suspiria, in which Jessica Harper plays Lutz Ebersdorf, who in turn is playing
they do in their spare time? a naive young ballet student trapped in psychoanalyst Dr. Klemperer.) These two
Wiseman seeks, and finds, an academy of evil schemes. But Suspiria performers, and a host of hardworking
the answers, illuminating was never about the plot; it was all about supporting ones (including Harper, in
a pocket of this divided the vibe, the bold splashes of fuchsia fake a cameo), give their all, sometimes even
America that most of us will blood, the op-art board- making their actions—if not
never visit. game production design, ‘I’m not a their Pina Bausch by way
No one in Monrovia, and the music, a spooky, professional of “What a Feeling!” dance
Indiana speaks overtly percussive earworm by the dancer. It was moves—quasi-believable.
about politics, and there’s Italian group Goblin. But Guadagnino has
not a MAGA hat in sight. Luca Guadagnino, terrifying.’ made the story, set in a
Wiseman simply visits the a genius of sorts who DAKOTA JOHNSON, tumultuous 1977 Berlin,
places—a cafe, a gun shop, has made some lush, in Entertainment Weekly, insanely complicated;
a baby shower taking place passionate movies (I Am on shooting the Suspiria he’s thinking too much
at a community center— Love, Call Me by Your dance sequences and feeling too little.
Name), now gives us his
If this Suspiria is at
where people gather. Their
BOY ERASED: FOCUS FE ATURES; SUSPIRIA: AMA ZON their views, become the its forebear, this one is bland, grisly, nightmare visions of worms, and some
times unpleasantly grim—there are
own reimagined Suspiria. But unlike
very lives, as opposed to
boring and silly—there’s nothing poetic
fabric of the movie. Always
broken mirrors and blood-smeared
or erotic about it. It’s not the fault of the
walls—it’s not exactly scary. Worst of
a silent witness, Wiseman
actors, among them Dakota Johnson as
all, Guadagnino has opted for a drab,
just watches and listens.
soul-killing color palette. Who wants a
And like nearly all his films,
wide-eyed student Susie, reinvented
beige Suspiria? Guadagnino has sucked
this one has a spare, precise
here as a Mennonite naïf with big
the juice out of Argento’s concept,
Martha Graham dreams, or Guadagnino
visual beauty. It’s workaday
haiku that enlarges our
and the arty corpse he’s left behind
regular Tilda Swinton as Madame
Blanc, one of the top instructors at the
isn’t pretty. —s.z.
view of the world. —s.z.
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