Vampire on new roads

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Screenplay and Direction: Ana Lily Amirpour,
photo: Lyle Vincent

No other subgroup of the horror genre has produced such diverse stories and expressions as the vampire movie. Among the best examples of recent years is Tomas Alfredson Let the right one come in (2008), based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. This Swedish film was as much a poetic-realistic depiction of a suburb of Stockholm in the early eighties as it was a horror movie. But nonetheless, it was a vampire movie. Earlier this year, Norwegian cinemas showed the New Zealand What We Do in the Shadows (2014), which is a very fun and invigorating documentary about a community of just vampires. Worth mentioning is also the Greek movie norway (2014); a rarity with great cult movie potential set in Athens' alternative nightlife scene of the eighties, which is about a vampire who must dance so his heart doesn't stop – and his encounter with some comeback-ready Nazis. Hopefully will norway eventually be able to look at Norwegian festivals or cinemas, for those especially interested who are undoubtedly out there.

Not surprisingly, Jim Jarmusch's attempt at the vampire genre was also Only Lovers Left Alive from 2013 of the unconventional kind, like his Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) were no typical western or samurai films, respectively.

"Save the cat." Ana Lily Amirpour's darkly humorous feature film debut A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which is currently the Cinema of the Month movie, adds style elegance to this range of innovative vampire films. At the same time it has a certain relationship just to the said Jarmusch, but we will return to that in a bit.

Although the action takes place in the fictional Iranian city of Bad City, the film is an American production, filmed in California with exilirians in the roles. We are introduced to the James Dean-like Arash, in the film's project taking care of a cat he comes across – possibly as a tongue in cheekreference to the Hollywood drama's mantra of letting the main character save a cat to win the audience's sympathy. (In that case, Amirpour has been thinking in much the same way as the Coen brothers when they used the same convention, which is not necessarily meant literally, with a certain irony in Inside Llewin Davis (2013) – a film that otherwise broke with the norm of a sympathetic and active action-driven main character.) This may rhyme with the fact that Arash is as much of an anti-hero as a classic protagonist. For example, he is no stranger to selling drugs, despite the fact that he himself struggles with an injecting drug father.

Skateboard and chador. Both Arash and his father live under the strict whip of the langeren and the pimp Saeed, who early in the film takes Arash's gorgeous 50s car in payment for drug debt the father has accumulated. Other prominent characters are a curious boy in Arash's neighborhood, as well as one of Saeed's prostitutes and not least a mysterious, young woman who moves around in the shadows – and who turns out to be a vampire. If we are to stick to dramaturgical terminology, we learn this in the first act's final turning point, where she performs a murder in a way that reveals the film's genre affiliation. The mysterious girl, who has no name in the film, is by the way the first vampire I can remember seeing with a hijab – or with a chador, to be exact. This is probably also the first time I see a vampire on a skateboard, even though she does not use it as often as the headdress.

Underneath the religious shawl, the girl also has a striped hipster sweater, which hints at her passionate relationship with music – which the character obviously shares with the filmmaker himself. Amirpour has a background as both a DJ and a musician, and lets the musical soundtrack play a very important role in the film. Her marked and evocative use of catchy and more or less unknown songs (from both Iran and other countries) brings to mind Tarantino in the 90's, but also Nicolas Winding Refns. Drive (2011)

Vampires represent a kind of superior predator that kills other species to absorb food – not unlike us humans.

The film's design language is admittedly closer to Jim Jarmusch ', which I have mentioned before. Like several of his early films are A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night filmed in contrasting black and white, with many scenes where the characters barely say anything while the camera stays still on the tripod. As a kind of love story arises between the girl and Arash, largely through shared (and to some extent magical) musical experiences, one can also get clear associations to the (music)-loving vampires Adam and Eve in Only Lovers Left Alive.

Intertextuality. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is, however, a postmodern cocktail of intertextuality and popular cultural references, pointing to far more than Jarmusch. Here you can see traces of Sergio Leone's western films and hints at Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez ' Sin City (2005) and by David Lynch. Not primarily Lynch's well-known surrealism (though Eraserhead (1977) jokes a bit in the background), but more his play with classic narrative characters. In Amirpour's film, one has not only the vampire, which in itself is a mythological figure, but also a character gallery that largely consists of cinematic archetypes. These are combined with various elements of American youth culture from the 50s, as you know it from Root youth (1955), while Amirpour also seems to be playing on Iranian film history.

But after all this "name dropping", it should also be said that Amirpour mixes all these ingredients in an expression that is ultimately perceived as her own. Actual.

The sensual predators. That vampire movies have proven to be more diverse than other horror sub-genres is probably related to the fact that the eternal bloodsuckers can symbolize and thematize so much between heaven and earth. Vampires are sensual, sensual and sophisticated, at the same time as they are monsters. Mythology is, of course, about man's dream of eternal life – for better or for worse. Often these stories take up the pain by having to see everyone around them die, while you yourself are doomed to live on. In other words, loneliness is also themed, which is often described as an inevitable companion in eternal life. The vampires are also a kind of junkie, as, for example, Abel Ferrara portrayed them in The Addiction (1995). As immortal creatures, they are obviously supernatural, but they also follow some of nature's laws: Vampires represent a kind of superior predator that kills other species to absorb food – not unlike us humans.

A certain feminist anger can be read into the story, as the vampire seems to concentrate his bloodlust on men who hate or abuse women.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is not as concerned with all of these elements, and good is probably that. It most clearly thematizes the loneliness, which to a certain extent characterizes all the film's characters – not least the vampire himself, who is the one who stands outside and watches. However, the film is also a love story about two outsiders who find each other, and consequently break out of loneliness – albeit perhaps only for a limited time.

Feminism and postmodernism. The title is also not without a certain irony, all the time it gives the impression of a girl in danger – but really it is the girl who poses the danger to life. Furthermore, a certain feminist anger can be read into the story, as the vampire seems to concentrate his bloodlust on men who hate or abuse women. "Be a kind boy," she says urgently to the young boy during a nightly meeting. Possibly it is meant as a threat of fatal consequences if he does not do as she says.

One should not ignore the fact that the film on an allegorical level wants to say something about Iran, but I do not intend to move into this interpretive landscape. The Iranian-American Amirpour was born in Great Britain, and to me she appears to be such a postmodern filmmaking that the form is possibly richer than the content is deep – without this necessarily being negative. And she has made a fable that fascinates and captivates.

It is also certain that screenwriter and director Ana Lily Amirpour is a very exciting film talent, who with her first feature film demonstrates the vampire myth's ability to live on in new and distinctive interpretations.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night shown as Film of the Month at the Cinematheque in Oslo until the end of June.

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