Nosferatu

I have been sitting on this post related to the new adaptation of Nosferatu for almost a week now. I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a press screening of the film on Boxing Day (so not a pre-screening, but still free so thank you MontiLee!). I will not be providing a run down of the plot, as I assume that you are reading this, you have seen at least one version of Dracula. If you have not seen this movie yet, do NOT read this post as it is full of spoilers (for a movie inspired by a film that came out in 1922 based on a book that came out in 1897).

There are some things that I really liked about the movie. First and foremost, it is gorgeous. The scenes are, for the most part, shot beautifully. The use of lighting is superb with the use of cooler tones in some scenes going a long way towards setting the mood. I feel like Eggers does an admirable job of deciding what scenes to include and which to allude to. For example, he does not attempt to recreate the most iconic visuals of the 1922 version — Orlok’s unbending rise from a prone position to standing, the wild carriage ride, the moving of the coffins full of dirt, the the shadow as he creeps up the stairs towards the end of the movie. Any attempt to try and replicate these images would have been a mistake which he avoids.

I’m certain that by now you have read, and perhaps even participated in, the discussion about Orlok’s appearance, notably the mustache. That is the one thing that didn’t bother me at all. When we first see him in his castle, I was pleasantly surprised that the ‘stache which features in the novel made an appearance. Clothed Olok was a pretty accurate image of how I pictured the Count before he leaves his castle.

However, unclothed Orlok — ugh. I guess the idea was to give him a corpse-like gauntness, but the overall look just didn’t do it for me. While I totally appreciate the return to the base monster instead of the suave, mysterious foreigner we are used to seeing in the form of Dracula, I just didn’t care for the creature design at all. Chalk this up as yet another time that Bill Skarsgård’s remake appearance is a poor version of an original. Yes, I hated how he looked in It and The Crow remake can fuck all the way off.

There were a couple of times that the close-ups bothered me, but this is a small thing.

I did love the rats pouring around the village and the way the town looked, but I will get to that in a little bit.

The audio for this film is amazing. The sounds of Orlok feeding are truly disgusting. The music, while a little loud at times, is very well done.

Also of note, in terms of things heard in the film, is Skarsgård’s voice. He manages to sound like something speaking from beyond the veil of death. His voice is commanding and sinister, absolutely exceptional.

The performances in this film absolutely shine. Well done, no notes. Skarsgård’s portrayal of the Count is perfectly overbearing, dripping with the entitlement one would assume to find with a European lord. He is menacing, miles away from the romantic figure that one normally thinks of when thinking about Dracula.

Lily-Rose Depp is quite convincing as someone who is walking a fine line between sanity and mania. Her physical performance is similarly amazing, ranging from quietly melancholy to writhing panic.

The other cast members are similarly believable in their roles, with points going to Simon McBurney as our Renfield stand-in Knock. My favorite, however, was Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz. I absolutely loved this offbeat take on the usually straightforward Van Helsing character. This is the master of occult knowledge that I want coming to help me in my time of vampiric need.

As noted above, the use of the rats to indicate the plague that was unleashed when Orlok arrives was quite well done. I seem to remember the town being decimated for longer in the original, but I could be misremembering. I will have to rewatch to verify (of course I have a copy of the 1922 version. I’m pretty sure I have two. However, I think the last time I watched it was at the Redford Theatre with organist accompaniment). Still, I felt that the time between when Orlok arrives and the end of the film seemed a bit rushed, but I may be the only person who felt that way.

On the other hand, the time spent with the other characters is well done. Some Dracula retellings tend to bog down whenever the Count is not on the screen, but the interplay between Ellen Hutter and those around her is well done and compelling. We don’t have the vampire brides to keep Thomas Hutter company, so his isolation while trapped in the castle with just the vampire is suitably claustrophobic.

On the gripping hand, Eggers also presents us with bits of vampiric folklore that don’t normally appear in the films. The horse riding virgin (one assumes) seeking out the grave of another of the undead is a nice addition. Everyone knows Lugosi’s “children of the night” line, but Orlok being shadowed by wolves while stalking through his castle? Chef’s kiss.

There is however, one plot point which bothered me upon seeing the film and which has continued to plague me (like a million rats running through the street). This is the connection between Ellen and Orlok. This appears to echo the lovers divided by time motif introduced by Coppola in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which I’ve seen others posit was nicked from The Mummy 1932). In and of itself, this doesn’t bother me. In most of the various versions the vampire sees the Harker character’s wife/fiancee/love interest and imprints on her. Sure, the “she looks like/is the reincarnation of my lost love thing can feel a bit tropey, but I will forgive it most of the time. What bothers me about how this is done in Egger’s Nosferatu is that this is not the only connection between Orlok and Ellen Hutter. We also have some weird connection where Ellen reached out and awoke the Count when she was young and rebellious (and possibly having her sexual awakening or was I reading too much into this?). This makes me feel like Ellen is responsible for Orlok’s reawakening, which in turn changes her actions at the end of the film from one of self-sacrifice to obligation. Instead of keeping the vampire from his coffin to save those she cares for and possibly the whole village, she is just righting a wrong which she is the cause of. This is further reinforced if we compare the final images of the original film to those of the most recent. Murnau’s vampire disappears in a puff of smoke after encountering the rising sun. Ellen dies after a final embrace with Thomas. Egger’s vampire collapses on Ellen, obscuring her from those she saved and the audience, a final indication that this was all her fault and she deserved to die.

Yes, I know that these aren’t the final final images, but work with me here.

Despite this point which may just be something that bothers me, if you are at all interested in Nosferatu you should definitely see it in the theater. This is a film which deserves to be seen in all of its cinematic glory.

I think you should.