The Art of the Hex: The Witch in the Movies.
The concept of witch arises in the Babylonian culture to refer to the woman who practices a “black magic” contrary to institutionalized religious precepts, a crime that in the Code of Hammurabi was punished by throwing the guilty into the river (Hormigos Vaquero: 2007,477 ). The image of women flying, with powers that transform people into animals, causing them physical damage or tremendous pain have haunted the witches.
In the cinema, the figure of the witch is an inexhaustible topic, it has several facets: the sensual and attractive sorceress who seduces, with her beauty, embodies the young Circe who in the Odyssey dupes Odysseus and transforms her companions into pigs .
The witch is powerful in that she combines charm and knowledge, establishes contact with the devil through orgies and rituals, and sometimes becomes his priestess, as can be seen in films such as Witchcraft Through Ages (Haxan) or The Undead. The other facet is to present her with a horrible appearance, rejected and feared for the excessive use of her knowledge and tendency for destruction.
In Argento's filmography we find Suspiria, which is part of a trilogy that the director himself put together from his literary influence, especially Thomas de Quincey's story about three mothers, Mater Lachrymarum (Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (Sighs) and Mater Tenebrarum (Darkness).
Like the Fates, in Greek mythology there are three sisters: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. The first grants the threads of each person's life; the second, intertwine the threads and decide how long the thread of each person's life will be; finally, the third is in charge of cutting the thread and, thereby, ending the person's existence.
Suspiria is a mysterious breath of life, all the tectonic power embodied in a female being that is nourished by the young energy of the students of an academy that is the heart of Suspiria the destructive mother. Its hidden existence as a dangerous shadow veils the dream of the young women. Suspiria is an evil witch, a demonic entity.
In Black Sunday Barbara Steele plays a sorceress named Asa Vajda who seems to harbor not a drop of humanity inside her when she returns 200 years after her death to wreak havoc on her execrable brother's family. It also presents itself as the enemy of good, of the order established by patriarchal institutions that undermine by all means the development of dissatisfied women and the propagation of their ideas.
Always fought through violent actions and methods, let us remember the scene where the mask is nailed at the point of mallets. Currently, productions such as The Lords of Salem or Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi demonstrate once again the renewed validity of the witch on the screen.
