31 Horrors: Vampyr (#20)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

Well, it's easy to see why this has been deemed as so influential, isn't it? Per the Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD sleeve, Carl Theodore Dreyer's Vampyr was deemed by Alfred Hitchcock as "the only film worth watching... twice", Vampyr is seemingly a very obvious inspiration to Psycho. Vampyr, also the inspiration to Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep in a far more obvious way, is about a man who leaves his life and descends into a fantasy horror upon arriving a motel in the middle of nowhere. What is Janet Leigh's Marion Crane is not a fantastical being on the run? Where does she end? A middle of nowhere motel. While Marion met a far crueller fate than Nicolas de Gunzburg's Allan Gray (the film's unofficial subtitle is The Strange Adventure of Allan Gray), Vampyr too descends into a mystery-solving horror ala Psycho, just with vampires instead of mummy-dressing psychotics. The similarities don't quite end there, however, as Hitchcock appears to have aped several slices of striking imagery too.

Vampyr is the first sound feature that Dreyer ever made, coming on the heels of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Having said that, Dreyer has stuck to a silent aesthetic for the most part and there is minimal dialogue as a result of the producer's wish to record the film in both French and Germany languages. Title cards are frequently used and many of the actors - unprofessional actors for the most part I've since discovered - work more in sinister glances than horrific speeches. Dreyer, too, uses static imagery more than the theatrical horrors of his international brethren. Vampyr's release was actually delayed in Germany so that Dracula and Frankenstein could be released first, certainly one of the earliest sign posts of the international film world working with a domino effect.

At only 72 minutes, Vampyr doesn't exactly dig deep into the vamp mythology, but it does manage to craft an excessively eerie atmosphere. As Allan Gray attempts to solve and break the vampire curse that has swept across his village without succumbing to it himself, Dreyer infuses it with enough images of wrinkled, doom-ravaged faces and sickle-wielding townsfolk to power several films. It's holds an incredible power, a spell if you will, that doesn't break until it's over. A bewitching and altogether stunning piece of brilliantly crafted cinema. A-

Pandora's Convent

It's time for another one of Nathaniel Rogers' Hit Me With Your Best Shot features at The Film Experience. I generally enjoy this feature, although this week I had trouble. I don't own GW Pabst's 1927 classic ("classic" because it's good, not "classic" because it's old) Pandora's Box on DVD and didn't receive it in the mail soon enough to go through it and truly find my favourite shot. So, I cheated, and used DVD Beaver and grabbed my favourite.


Granted, I think this shot is just glorious anyway, but I'm sure I might have found something different if I actually had the DVD here with me. Oh well. This shot is very amazing though and, as Nathaniel points out himself, so very erotic without actually being anything overtly erotic. If that makes sense.

Another one of the film's Mr Rogers chose to use for "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" a few weeks back was Powell & Pressburger's nuns-in-the-mountains (the good one, not that shit one from 1965) masterpiece Black Narcissus. It was another DVD that didn't arrive in time, but when it finally did I bathed in that movie's gorgeousness like Countess Bálthory (er...) So I can now finally look at that film.


Technically, this is probably the best shot in Black Narcissus as the camera swings over the edge of the cliff that Deborah Kerr's Indian convent sits atop. Alas, it's not my favourite so let's move on.


Anything with such heavy reliance on shadow is going to pique my interest - hello! - and as amazingly composed as this shot is I'm not choosing it.





I came very close to choosing one of the many beguiling shots of Kathleen Byron towards the end of the film in which cinematographer Jack Cardiff lenses her with such striking menace and power. Whether it be the vivid colour of the dress and lipstick as we first see her out of the nun's habit or the very modern way her revenge reveal is framed. If you showed me those middle to shots up there and asked to pinpoint the decade they were from I'd be tempted to think they were from an upcoming Quentin Tarantino film!




I very, very nearly went with this procession of shots that occurs about half way through the film. They are stunning in their own right, but they bring about a renewed sense of verve and colour within the film. If Black Narcissus was a beautiful film before this moment it was even more so afterwards.

However, for my favourite shot I went with this moment from within the opening minutes as the mother superior tells Kerr's young nun that she has been chosen to lead the new convent in the mountains.


From a technical standpoint it's not the best, but from a character point of view it is the ace in the hole of Powell and Pressburger's motivations. Look as she tries so very hard to not smile at the thought of being entrusted with an entire convent. That pride that she is trying to quell within her because she knows is a sin and yet it ever so slightly emerges within the corners of her mouth. Loved this tiny little moment, don't you?

Review: The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Dir. Uli Edel
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 150mins

Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex appears to be, to it's own detriment, incredibly thorough. It is ferociously directed, well-acted and feels like it's barreling ahead at breakneck speed, and yet in it's desire to become the Forrest Gump of movies about the German RAF movement it suffers from it's own heavy weight and what could have been a blisteringly exciting exploration of history eventually becomes over-wrought.

German cinema is quickly becoming some of my favourites, and for a good portion of Baader Meinhof's 150 minute running time I felt it slotted right in, but while the running time might not suggest anything truly exhausting - there have been far worse movies that ran far longer - Edel and writer Bernd Eichinger have tried to fit every single noteworthy moment of the infamous Red Army Faction's first ten years of existence that it becomes obvious there is just too much. And since the first hour - I checked - is so pulse-elevating, there's only so much of that I could take. There are moments that I felt could have been easily excised such as a sojourn to an army training course in the desert. Nothing comes out of it except to slow the film down.


Reliving the years between the group's creation in 1967 to the infamous "German Autumn" in 1977, that climaxed with the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane, the film follows the RAF's major creative forces, Ulrike Meinhof (an excellent Martina Gedeck), Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek in another of the film's finer performances) as they plot, scheme and carry out acts of terrorism on the German government. Beginning with a claustrophobic and terrifying riot sequence Edel sets a frenetic pace. Much like the similar events that were portrayed in Steven Spielberg's Munich (which has a bit of cross plotting to Complex) it is so interesting to see this period portrayed on screen. Cinematography by Rainer Klausmann is clean and polished while Alexander Berner's editing really shines.

However as so many differing schemes and battle start going on involving characters who know characters who we don't know and it all becomes too heavy for the film to handle. The events begin to confuse and become hard to follow unless you're already aware of the timeline that is transpiring. The lack of any insight into the personal lives of these characters outside of a brief flash or two towards the start is particularly frustrating since the brief moments we do see - especially Meinhof's relationship with her children once she joins the militant group - are fascinating. It's hard to figure out why Baader was so influential over this group of people since he comes off as a horrible wretch of a human being for long periods of the film. Surely these characters - and there are indeed a lot of them - didn't speak radicalism 24/7 with brief interludes for discussions about guns, explosives and the evils of their government.


Edel hasn't made a cinematic drama since Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1989, instead focusing on episodic television and TV movies. By seemingly modelling his film on Hollywood movies he has fallen into the same traps that they do by not realising that just because he has the means to film everything and put it on screen doesn't mean he should. Although, to be perfectly honest, I think that is a problem with the screenplay, based on the non-fiction novel by Stefan Aust, and not Edel's direction, which is very impressive and there is plenty to recommend here from the acting to the technical skills on display. It just would have been far more effective if the fat had been trimmed from it. B-

The Baader Meinhof Complex is released 7 May and is in preview screenings this weekend.