Luca Guadagnino's 'Splash'-y Return
Friday, May 6, 2016 at 8:00AM 
After debuting at last fall's Venice Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash finally arrived stateside. It's another entry in the growing mass of festival titles taking their time to make their way to the US, with last year's Cannes Palme d'Or winner Dheepan oh so quietly opening next week as well.
A few extra months' wait for Splash is an acceptable compromise consider the six years wait fans of Guadagnino's 2009 slice of divinity I Am Love have had to endure. This time, Guadagnino looks to trade in Love's breathless romanticism for a feverish chic, but upping the ante of the former film's sexual intrigue. It would be some kind of crime against the audience to have a cast like Tilda Swinton (Guadagnino's returning muse), Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Dakota Johnson and not get a little randy.
But wouldn't you be willing to wait for summer to get a dancing (and birthday-suited) Ralph Fiennes by the pool?
Luckily, the wait won't be so long for the director's next lush piece of cinema: he announced this week that his long-gestating remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria will shoot this fall. The remake has had a long haul in its own right, with rumored directors like Darren Aronofsky and David Gordon Green. Luca Guadagnino is an exciting fit for the project, the visual opera he crafted with Love a perfect fit for the giallo nightmare of Argento's original. The director has already lined up his Splash cast to return, so we can expect something special without becoming impatient.
What are your thoughts on Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria?
Reader Comments (10)
I have ALL of the thoughts on Luca Guadagnino remaking Suspiria. ALL OF THEM. I don't even know where to begin. I saw him do a talk a couple weeks ago with Tilda and my boyfriend asked him a question him about Suspiria (because my boyfriend's awesome) and he said that he considered Argento's film a seminal one for him -- that it's a huge part of why he makes movies and what made him love movies and what he's thinking about when he makes movies. All of that goes a long way towards me not being horrified at the prospect of remaking one of my favorite horror films. (All that plus TILDA of course.)
Anyway I saw A Bigger Splash this week (here's my review; I absolutely loved it) and you can actually see, once you've trained yourself to look for it, all kinds of shout-outs to Argento in his filmmaking.
I am kind of sad that Suspiria won't star Isabelle Huppert though - she was attached when David Gordon Green was making it. There are multiple terrifying teachers in the dance school though, so maybe Guadagnino can still land her!
Guadagnino isn't loved very much in Italy.
No nominations at David di Donatello awards for "A bigger splash".
Dario Argento's fans (and Asia Argento herself) have panned him as the director's choice for the new Suspiria's remake.
Loved it! Cast were all great, and Guadagnino is obviously having a blast - luckily he has serious chops, so it's a joy to watch him show off. The movie loses some of its energy and focus in the final 20 minute stretch, but not in a game changing way - it just goes from a 5 star flick to a 4 star one. Many will say it, but Fiennes' Emotional Rescue scene really is worth the admission price alone.
Jason - you can definitely see the Argento influence in I AM LOVE, so now I'm fascinated to see it in SPLASH. And your review was a delight!
The most exciting promise of Guadagnino for SUSPIRIA is that modern remakes are ignoring what we love most about the original in favor of some new take on the material. Gudagnino's style should give us a "yes, and" approach to the original's macabre.
I consider the original Suspiria (a classic of insanity and vision with a killer soundtrack, plus Joan Bennett *and* Barbara Steele) to be one of the worst "best films." So I have no problem at all with a remake, especially by a talented Italian filmmaker who adores Argento.
Paul -- i have the same feelings about SUSPIRIA. I mean on the one hand it has a lot going on and it's visually fascinating. On the other hand it's not very good.
Your definitions of "good" have to be elastic when it comes to Horror Movies, you guys ;)
Well, Jason, I do call it a "classic of insanity and vision," but when outright genius masterpieces of the genre do exist, I don't feel the need to be that elastic about what's good. ;-)
Unless there's someone out there who thinks the original versions of Psycho, The Haunting, Halloween, Bride of Frankenstein and Carrie are bad...
Of course, of course, I was just being tongue in cheek. Suspiria's one of my favorites but I have no delusions about it being well acted or sanely plotted. But MOOD wise it's all so WEIRD it genuinely feels dangerous and psychotic at times, and the visuals and that music are so spectacular they carry it over the rougher patches. It's more about the feeling it evokes than anything else. Nothing else FEELS like it, even among other giallos of its time, so it remains singular.
No argument there!