Some New Textual Analysis

The film 'Supsiria' has recently come to my attention through my horror music research.

The inital flow of credits is reminiscent of perhaps, lower budget production values but serves as an immediate pace setting. The non-diegetic use of a voice over is in tandem with a percussionist dream like music is a visage to the narrative format and fairytale facade this film creates. the lullaby like music motif we hear consistently is simultaneously linked to the strange framing choices.

The descending crane of the camera would usually place the audience in a position of authority due to the space and freedom they are given by the smooth swoop across the screen but the framing of the people who are moving towards the camera is awkward due to the relatively high cutoff just below the shoulders. This way there is a discontinuation with the establishing of the main actress. She is shown in this shot but it clearly meant to be a generic female role in the initial conception.

The next shot is a 3 shot with a direct connotation of the holy trinity. The correlation of the female presence and the direct absolution of the primary masculine nature of this trinity is a reference to future developments of female superiority later in the film. As no male characters are established, except for a subservient male taxi driver there is a social bond between the fragile nature of a stereotypical woman and the apparent strength and dominance of the females in this film. This shot also allows the main character to be established in the movement of the two parallel females past the camera. Again asserting the female dominance as they can move at a faster pace than the audience is allowed by the director and also embodies the initial sensitivity and weakness of the central female lead.

The first glimpse of surrealism enters in the reverse shot the audience experiences in the proceeding movement of camera. The music itself non-diegetic rises above the diegetic sound in volume. The tannoy voice over is quickly cut to allow our perception of her dislocated state. In a generic film the verisimilitude is created by being as realistic to the world created as possible but as we have been told by a voiceover this is our reality (as he has named countries as Germany ect.) there is a breakdown of the films immediate realism. This is what establishes the film as uncomfortable. If the director has deliberately used this, which he has, it has been to the effect of disrupting barriers in the movie, the audience have suddenly become enveloped in the lead characters own imagination, her dreams, and is now subject to the limitless possibilities of the human mind.

Setting the initial scene in an airport could have several connotations. An airport is a place of transit and, for most is the first part of a new country you see. The idea behind the use in this horror film is to establish a strong sense of location and the essence of dislocation for the character. Forcing the creation of a symbiotic relationship between the decidedly 'lost' lead role and the audience themselves. In contrast another interpretation could be that the airport was used to manufacture a correlation between commercialization in the 1970's and a seemingly processed movement of human culture. The performance given in the slow pace towards the mechanical and metal/glass clinical door is coupled with a white dress and small eggshell blue scarf. The denotation is instantly distilled with the connotation of hygiene and a hospitalized environment that is thrown in harsh red lighting, reminiscent of a microwave's radiation and lighting. The impression of purity and cleanliness is a suppressive link to the increase in mass culture and social climate change in the 1970's, primarily from growth in the technological sector of industry.

A strange match on action use occurs in this sequence of her progression towards the exit. The highlight is given to the mechanical movement of an automatic door. The door itself seems reluctant to move as it is timed to perfection but also is violent and unremorseful in it inhuman state. The ferocious timing and execution of this spliced continuation editing is disturbing due to the connotations of mechanical superiority being almost framed as an obedience in the presence of this unseemingly woman. If machines fear her, should we?

Fluently, Dario Argento has a consious deliverence from the seexulaiasiation of innocence and the virginal state of the femlae form. The vivid penetration of the machinery is a physical manifestation fo the raw sexual energy that is hel within the characters virginal looks. The gust of wind the breaks her hear across her face would represent her loss of protection and the meatphorical 'first time' her conception fo the country and also her sexuality. My interpretation of the strong female presence later in the film provided a strong lesbian characterisation and tperhaps the lack of a male dominance within her first 'penetration' within the film relates to the lack of sexual orientation.