The editing of this first proper post-credits scene in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria re-do by master editor Walter Fasano (who also nursed the languorous sunshine rhythms of Call Me By Your Name to a sweaty slow boil) calls a lot of attention to itself. The cuts are quick with lots of inserts to small touches, literally -- we see fingers touching pens and pens touching papers, and so many intimate close-ups of books you'd think I personally was the one photographing this room...
Comparing and contrasting this scene with its miniature counterpart in Dario Argento's 1977 film, I think it immediately makes clear how different these two filmmakers will be tackling this material -- Argento shows us this character of Patricia (Eva Axén) fleeing through the black forest, alien like lights cutting through the vertical slashes of trees...
I don't think it's a stretch to say that Guadagnino purposefully echoes those forms with the spines of books surrounding Dr. Klemperer (Tilda Swinton) and Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) -- instead of Argento's wild nature, his witches birthed from the dark forest, Guadagnino threatens with knowledge...
... with learning, with hearty hefty copies of Jung and the cold
cement confines of a bleak and blasted cityscape.
There is no warmth in this room -- Patricia flits around it like an insect batting at a sterile electric zapper, and Fasano's frantic editing throws us off the scent; I do wonder how this scene would have played watching this movie not knowing it was Tilda buried underneath all of that latex? Because watching it knowing that makes the good doctor immediately suspicious...
... and this scene feels even more hopeless than it might've been otherwise. We know from the start that the women are a coven; no undercover work needed. And we can't trust Klemperer for the entire film because of what we know he has hiding underneath his seemingly kind exterior (that would be Academy Award winning actress, fashion house muse, and Marvel superhero Tilda Swinton); but it is the film's neat final act trick that it's the double-natured ones we should have kept faith in all along, while it's the ones who can only see one way who'll end up losing their heads. And a final note of knowledge, before the flood, grants a measure of grace to the world.
Posts
2 comments:
I somehow managed to get through the entire movie not knowing that was Tilda! I think I was just so wrapped up in the movie and on edge (both because of the movie and because it was election night in TX when I watched it), so I was not at all suspicious about this person. I was gobsmacked when I discovered it was Tilda.
Oh wow, that's so interesting, Jez! I really wish I could have watched it once like that. It's such an incredible performance anyway, I love that they were able to totally trick you! Not just for the sake of tricking you personally of course, just that the illusion, the movie magic, was so total.
Post a Comment