This is the best Persian language black and white photographed vampire film that you’ll ever see. That might seem a bit flippant, but I promise you that it is the exact opposite, it is high praise. I got the chance to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night last night at the Union Theatre at UW-Milwaukee. I cannot believe that I’ve not been there before now. The movie was free and the concessions were dirt cheap. The staff was really nice and the picture and sound were great. Getting to see a film like this which has only hit over a dozen screens nationwide was a real treat. It was a darling of last year’s Sundance from a first time female filmmaker, Ana Lily Amirpour. Iranian cinema has always been a bright spot in the history of world cinema. Abbas Kiarostami is a legend, Ashgar Farhadi gave a brillant effort with A Separation, and Shoreh Aghdashloo is about as solid a supporting actress that you’ll find whether it’s in Persian language films or not. While this film was actually made in America it is in the Persian language and features Iranian actors. It is set in the fictional Iranian ghost town of Bad City and focuses on the life of a lonely vampire, only known as The Girl. It’s a genre mashup featuring tropes from Westerns, but it is also a drug movie and a love story. It is very much in the tradition of New Wave European filmmaking, so if you like the works of Truffaut and Antonioni in particular you’ll be a fan of this, though this is more humorous than anything they’ve done.
I single out Michelangelo Antonioni is a reference because his films were as concerned with the built environment and it’s effect on his characters almost more than any other filmmaker. Amirpour matches him here. Even though hers is a fictional town and not even shot in the same country it is portraying she is able to get an ominous, humorous, and paradoxical look at modern Iranian life exactly in the same way Antonioni did in L’Ecclise and Red Dessert. The films stark black and white photography is stunning. It might seem like a gimmick these days to shoot in black and white but sometimes it is necessary to achieve the right mood. And this film is all about mood. It is more about the atmosphere and raw feeling than it is about narrative. Despite this there is a rather circular logic to the film from where it starts to how it ends up and it can be enjoyed on multiple levels.
The film is also feminist in nature, though not in the hit you over the head way. The title makes it seem like the girl would be in trouble, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth, she is in control. The female characters are not all empowered and strong but they are all fully formed and not just there to service the mail character’s story arcs. One of the actresses, Mozhan Marno, can be seen on House of Cards currently. It also features the driver from How I Met Your Mother and was even produced in part by Elijah Wood. So even though this is a small film there are still recognizable people in it and I hope that the other actors become more recognizable over time too. Though the real star here is the director. I have the feeling her next effort will get the backing of the right people to make her into a person to really watch time and time again. This film was impressive at every turn and referenced other films constantly but still felt unique and fresh. Think Quentin Tarantino but with far less dialogue.
Other things of note include some of the best lighting I’ve seen recently. Sure the black and white photography draws your eye to the lighting more than you would otherwise notice. It wasn’t just the way the light hit the set and characters, but rather the source of the light that was interesting. In most scenes the light came from an onscreen artificial source like a street lamp or a reading lamp or a disco ball. The night scenes were great. The music soundtrack was also very interesting and played with and against conventions to create tension or humor, you definitely were grooving in your seat. Unique takes on vampires in film seem in vogue lately in independent cinema. After a glut of commercial vampire films that drew heavy criticism the indies seem to be setting this right. Only Lovers Left Alive was a vastly under-appreciated film last year and had a great creepy romance in its own right. In the next few weeks we’ll be getting What We Do in the Shadows a comedy about the real lives of vampires from different generations living in one house from New Zealand comedian Jemaine Clement. It’s a good time to be a fan of vampires in film.
midwestmovieman 