UHD Review Suspiria – UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

American Ballet dancer Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arrives at the elite German Tanz dance academy in a blinding rain storm as another student is fleeing. While she is refused entry, she returns the next morning to find that the woman she saw trying to escape, is now dead under violent circumstances. Putting her nerves behind her Suzy quickly rises in stature at the academy, under the tutelage of Miss Tanner (Alida Valli) and Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett). She also enlists the other students to investigate the academy as odd things keep occuring, including a maggot infestation, strange lights and illnesses, and further deaths as well. Ultimately Suzy uncovers the secrets hidden below: The dance company is a front for an ancient witches coven led by Mother Suspiria, the witch of sighs.

Suspiria...

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[Sam Posten]

Note that the review currently says Anchor Bay as the studio. We don't currently have a way for me to make this Synapse. I will fix that as soon as I can.

 

[Bryan^H]

Great review Sam. My friend sampled this for me on his new TV/sound system. I was very impressed with it. I wouldn't call the steelbook Blu-Ray that I got last year garbage, but I will most likely never watch it again now this exists.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks. Here’s the thing, I know a lot of hard work went into that Blu-ray. It just is so really outpaced by the tech in this release that it’s hard to compare them.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Thanks for the review, Sam. I watched my copy right after it arrived, and was extremely pleased with both the video and audio quality of the disc. I also own the BD from Synapse (my wife's attempting to sell it for me), and was amazed the UHD could be this much better than that stellar release. I have a price ceiling of $20 for UHD titles normally, but I broke my rule for this one occasion and am glad I did.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yeah I was surprised at the $60 MSRP especially since they don't include a Bluray OR digital code. I get that small vendors can't make it up in volume but I'd hate to think of how many fans will pass on this excellent release because of the asking price.

 

[Vincent_P]

The images attached to this review are taken from the overseas TLE restoration, not the Synapse one, and are not reflective of how the color timing on the Luciano Tovoli-approved Synapse version looks.

It's also worth noting that SUSPIRIA was not filmed in 3-strip Technicolor. It was filmed on normal Kodak Eastmancolor negative, but was explicitly designed to be printed in I.B. Technicolor, and was one of the last films printed by Technicolor Rome in the I.B. process before they shut down their equipment and sold it off to China. Below is an excellent retrospective article from American Cinematographer where Tovoli discusses the lengths he took in collaboration with Technicolor Rome to achieve the unique colors for SUSPIRIA: https://ascmag.com/articles/suspiria-terror-in-technicolor

Vincent

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks Vincent. I can only report the information I got online, which didn't make that distinction readily apparent to me:

13. IT WAS THE FINAL FILM TO BE PROCESSED IN THREE-STRIP TECHNICOLOR.

ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT
Color is very important in Suspiria. It adds to the fairy tale vibe and creates an otherworldly look that no other horror film has. One of the reasons for this is Argento’s insistence that the film be processed in three-strip Technicolor (the same process that gave classics like The Wizard of Oz their vibrant colors), which by the late 1970s had become both expensive and arcane. It was so arcane, in fact, that Technicolor was throwing out its three-strip processing equipment as the film was being made. Argento persuaded the Technicolor processors in Rome to hold on to a single machine until he finished Suspiria. He got the processing he wanted, and the film got its iconic look.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/503550/14-unforgettable-facts-about-‘suspiria’

The original Suspiria will never lose its fever pitch charm. The fact that the demand to see the film on celluloid in theaters 40 years after its release speaks volumes about its enduring impact on subsequent generations. Aside from the cultural impact, it’s the little trivial details that add to the film’s mysticism; random facts like Argento’s intentional placement of every doorknob of the academy at the eye-level 0f the female actors, magnifying the audience’s subconscious interpretation of the characters’ childlike naiveté. Or that Suspiria was the first Italian film to use the Steadicam technology for image stabilization. Or how Argento shot Suspira on Eastmancolor Kodak stock, then printed the film using the three-strip Technicolor process, utilizing one of the last remaining three-strip machines. After that, the three-strip process became obsolete. Yet, it lives on through this film.

https://www.filminquiry.com/suspiria-1977-review/

The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting, emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. Commenting on the film's lush colors, Argento said:

"We were trying to reproduce the colour of Walt Disney's Snow White; it has been said from the beginning that Technicolor lacked subdued shades, [and] was without nuances—like cut-out cartoons."[14]

The imbibition process, used for The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), is much more vivid in its color rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish qualities of the film Argento intended to evoke.[6] It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor,[15] having been shot on one of the last remaining Technicolor 3-strip cameras in Europe at the time; the rest had been returned to California.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspiria

Also: HTF is not generally provided screenshots to use and we do not have the technical capability to break Bluray and UHD copy protection as some sites do.

 

[Brian9229]

One little part of the review confused me; "Was the first film to employ three strip Technicolor, as made famous by the Wizard of Oz". Kind of sounds to me like Wizard of Oz used it first then, yeah?

 

[Sam Posten]

One little part of the review confused me; "Was the first film to employ three strip Technicolor, as made famous by the Wizard of Oz". Kind of sounds to me like Wizard of Oz used it first then, yeah?

No, Oz did it later but more well known (much wider audience) is my understanding.

We got that right @Vincent_P ?

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

None of that makes any sense.