Written by Linda
December 27, 2008
The opening shots of this weird black-and-white vampire film takes us take us through the dark streets of Manhattan, into divey bars, and dim taxi cabs... all to the swelling shoe-gazer music of My Bloody Valentine. Well! The filmmakers sure know how to get my interest from the start!
Take a passel of Hal Hartley veteran actors, like Martin Donovan and Elina Lowensohn, throw them into a David Lynchian vampire film (he produced the movie), add a dash of dark humor, and you've got the cult movie Nadja. It's the Dracula story turned on its head, and flung into modern New York City. You've gotta like that.
Nadja (Lowensohn) and her estranged twin brother Edgar (Jared Harris) just happen to be the children of Dracula; a result of an affair with the only woman he ever loved over 200 years before in Romania. They're a bit tired of their blood-sucking ways, and want to settle down and live normal lives, so it is to their great interest that they hear that dad and been slain by a vampire hunter (scraggly Peter Fonda). This means they could possibly free themselves of their curse.
Nadja seduces a young woman named Lucie (Galaxy Craze), whose marriage with Jim (Martin Donovan) is struggling, and Edgar has himself fallen in love with a mortal woman (Suzy Amis)... But ending the curse isn't as easy as they may think.
This is a very arty film, and not for all tastes (so to speak), but it is clever in its references to the original Dracula story and certainly offers a fresh look on an oft-told tale. The black-and-white cinematography is often quite beautiful (part of it was filmed using a plastic toy Pixelvision video camera!), and the soundtrack (also featuring Portishead, among others) kicks ass. Despite having a dry humor, it is never campy.
Check it out... It's not a bad way to spend a lazy evening in front of the TV.
