Before the advent of highly self-aware examples like Scream or A Cabin in the Woods , Italian director Dario Argento directed horror flicks more deeply invested in their genre β more knowing and playful β than the self-congratulatory irony of those later films could ever be.
Like the films of many directors tainted by the Video Nasties scare of the early s, Suspiria suffered from a critical eclipse and a variety of censored prints, and was largely cherished in its original form by aficionados of the field.
Suspiria begins with a young American dancer, Suzy played by Jessica Harper arriving at an airport and then catching a taxi to the German ballet school where she is to board. As much in love with unstoried suspense as it is body horror, Suspiria is a film of strange and inexpressible power. I spoke to Heller-Nicholas about the film as the Melbourne weather crowded its changes through the CBD streets, adding a nicely unsettled atmosphere to our conversation.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas : laughs There are a thousand ways to answer that but let me start with the personal. So of course it was instantly the thing I was most obsessed with watching as soon as I could. I was besotted with it for the very reason that it was forbidden. Not just the physical differences between genders but the physical fact of bodies. How do they break? JT : That sounds different from the concept beloved of recovering Julia Kristeva readers everywhere, the abject.
AHN : I think it is less complicated that pure abjection. Horror cinema allows teenagers and adults to experience that in a way that is often non-lingual. Sound in horror is as important as the images. Cinema academic Laura Marks talks about the affective qualities of film, especially in this beautiful concept she calls haptic visuality.
