Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to make creative work with all of your experience. When we watch films, we also bring all our experiences with us and I’ve always believed that watching films is a much more creative activity than people imagine. One thing I am coming to appreciate about Argento’s work, is that these seem to be films made with all of his experiences, and all of our senses.
There is a smell to the places inhabited by the Three Mothers and characters remark on this, a smell that is sweet but off, as if Mater Tenebrarum (Mother of Darkness) is luring us with cake only to execute her victims in increasingly lurid ways. The pinnacle of these killings is a window which acts like a glass guillotine, orchestrated by disembodied hands with long, pointed, faintly glittering nails. Is it because it’s the 80s? Have the witches had a makeover? Certainly, the first image we get of Mater Lachrymarum is as an exquisite beauty (Ania Perioni, who would not be out of place in your more upscale 80s music video) petting a cat while staring at Mark (Leigh McCloskey), who is trying to take his musicology exam in Rome.
One of the interesting things about Inferno (and Suspiria for that matter) is that men are kind of not the point. Sure, there are male characters here, but they are never the threat, nor are they the focus of either of these films (which is fine by me since I’m interested in witches, and in the women who pursue them.) This sets Suspiria and Inferno apart from other gialli such as Baba Yaga (Corrado Farina, 1973) (well worth seeing for its truly impeccable styling and fashion witches in fetish gear) or Strip Nude For Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975) where men are still a threat even if they’re not the gloved killer.
In those gialli men are often lecherous creeps, while women are their sexualised victims. Their angles are stylishly pornographic, and if you’re into women with gorgeous breasts, then there’s much to appreciate in Baba Yaga’s fashion shoots (you’re all welcome) if you are willing to overlook some stuff. In Suspiria and Inferno, women are all rather modestly attired, almost as if their nudity is also not the point here.
Suspiria and Inferno locate their sensuality in the textures of the architectural world rather than in nude flesh. Red walls, painted nails, glossed lips, smoky eye make-up, bare feet against carpet and floorboards, the curve of art deco detailing, flocked wallpaper, and crushed velvet draperies that beg to be stroked. It is also a world flooded with gorgeous lighting in shades of red, blue, and electric pink. (I cannot stress this enough: pink lighting makes everyone look sexy, no matter what you’re doing. If you want to have a fun party, get pink lighting.) Suspiria and Inferno evoke touch in all its aspects: as something comforting or startling. Recall Sara’s ‘death by touch’ in the room filled with razor wire in Suspiria, and you begin to understand the role of these other textures. And touch, much like smell, is a quality that cinema can only evoke.
Inferno’s commitment to physical sensation is established early with its impressively long underwater sequence, where Rose (Irene Miracle) searches for her dropped keys in the watery basement of her New York apartment building, which is also the home of Mater Tenebrarum. She slips into the water fully clothed in a skirt and blouse, exploring the sunken, ornate ballroom she finds there. We can imagine what it feels like, the water cold and shadowy, as her clothes billow around her.
Later, Sara (Eleanora Giorgi) visits one of the spookiest and most fascinating libraries I’ve ever seen (Biblioteca Angelica, a public library in Rome which dates from the 15th century) and this space too evokes scent and textures: leather armchairs, handmade paper, and the boiling pots of glue in the basement, stirred over open flame, in the bookbinder’s workshop. This library remains open to the public, and its collections can be touched and handled by anyone.
In this sense, both Suspiria and Inferno operate on a level of polymorphous sensation that encompasses the full spectrum of pain and pleasure: everyone cries, sighs, and sometimes feels afraid of the dark and therefore we are all subject to the realm of the Three Mothers. And just as these bodily responses are the domain of fear, they are also adjacent to pleasure, and to touch. In the darkness, we feel around us to know where we are, we weep and sigh without shame in the dark because no one can see us.
This reminded me of a recent experience I had, where I attended a dance workshop where we were asked to dance while wearing a blindfold. In my case, the blindfold I’d brought along was a narrow, red silk scarf. I wasn’t sure how I would respond to this prompt, but I found I enjoyed it a great deal, and that by placing myself temporarily in darkness, I was able to move instinctively, without overthinking my movements, or what my body looked like. I was also wearing perfume, which I often consider an aspect of performance when I dance. I knew I would be close to other dancers, so I deliberately put on Escentric 01, which smells different on everyone, but I also find it is a perfume that encourages proximity from those who respond to the scent and its wearer. The Three Mothers also seem to deploy scent to encourage proximity, as a lure for the curious, into a different kind of sensual realm.
HI