Luca Guadagnino doesn´t want you to call his Suspiria a remake, but a `cover version.` The Italian director has traded Call Me By Your Name`s sensual peaches for sensual Satanic dancing in what can only be described as a scholarly deconstruction of Dario Argento`s 1977 horror classic Suspiria. This reimagining ditches the most memorable aspects of the original--its colorful cinematography and hypnotic prog rock score--and replaces them with muted colors and quieter music. This film focuses instead on shapes and forms, with dancing as its main form for storytelling, and a muddled narrative that fails to bewitch.Structured as `six acts and an epilogue set in divided Berlin,` Suspiria tries to expand on the original by adding a full hour to the runtime with a bunch of new subplots. The original year of Argento`s classic is used as the setting for this version, allowing Guadagnino to add a whole new political dimension to a film that was heavy in style but light in plot. The story is now set against the background of the `German Autumn,` where reports of bombings and kidnappings by the Baader-Meinhof Group, the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight, and the demand for the release of imprisoned Red Army Faction leaders fill the TV sets seen in the background of several scenes. While it`s admirable that Guadagnino and writer David Kajganich try to add some context to the story in the form of parallels to German guilt and the political anger felt by a big part of the population against their elders in power, it ends up being all setup and no payoff. There is no reason given as to why any of this should be in the film, and it`s not the only confusing part about Suspiria.The movie starts with shots of chaos on the streets and a young American dancer, Patricia Hingle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is convinced that her dance academy is run by a coven of witches. Right before she disappears off the face of the Earth, she confides in German psychotherapist Dr. Jozef Klemperer, who du ...
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