Despite what you might think, I haven’t seen every vampire movie that’s come out. For example, I haven’t seen Let the Right One In or 30 Days of Night.
I haven’t even seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which I’ve heard has little to do with Bram Stoker’s original).
But every now and then a vampire film comes out that looks interesting enough to take a look at.
And so, when my husband and I saw a preview for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, dubbed ‘the first Iranian Vampire Western’, it piqued our interest.
The film was released in January 2015 but it’s only now started doing the rounds in Canadian cinemas. The pitch for the film is:
In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.
The film centres on a guy called Arash, who’s father is a heroin addict. They have a cat (which stole the show in my opinion). Arash works as a gardener until good fortune (or rather the vampire) delivers him a bunch of drugs and lots of cash.
Meanwhile the female vampire, who goes around town picking off victims and riding on a skateboard in her hijab-cum-cape.
She and Arash meet, there’s an attraction and something akin to love and the story goes from there – very slowly.
Now, you might be wondering, as I did, how a film like this could be made in Iran.
Well, despite it being dubbed an Iranian film, it was shot completely in the USA (in Taft, California) by director Ana Lily Amirpour, so there was no risk of being taken by the Revolutionary Guard.
All the actors spoke in Persian, which I enjoyed.
It’s shot in black-and-white, and there are some beautiful long, languid shots that look carefully composed and will no doubt be loved by film students and art critics alike.
This is probably why the film gets its ‘Western’ tagline because there aren’t any shoot-outs, no one rides in on horses, and in fact the fight scenes (if you could call them that) are one-sided as the vampire dispatches her victims with ease.
The vampire element was interesting. It’s somewhat rare to see such an introspective female vampire, though it, like the rest of the film, didn’t punch through. All the action, all the plot stays very contained, very low.
This wouldn’t have been so bad in a film that lasted only an hour but at two hours, it got a bit much. We both started watching the clock and wondering a) how this would end and b) when it would end.
Perhaps if I’d been expecting something so slow and measured, I wouldn’t have been so disappointed, however, the preview made this film look a lot more engaging than it was.
If you go see it, be prepared to leave wondering what the hell happened.
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