Nosferatwo

[diffrentcolours]

Just back from seeing Nosferatu with E and V. Second time for me as I caught it with P a few weeks ago.

It's a great movie. Not an easy watch, not least because the old school cinematography is a little slow paced for modern tastes. Count Orlok is genuinely horrific, far from the romantic vampire and closer to Romanian folklore.

It's a film with sex but it's not sexy - it's violent and disturbing and, well, horrifying. Eggers takes a lot of good bits from other adaptations of the story, throws in a few homages, but manages to make something original rather than just a retread.

One thing we discussed over burgers at Bunny Jackson's after the movie was that it works on multiple levels. Is Orlok a supernatural creature come to reclaim the girl he groomed and raped in her youth? Or is the despair he brings a personification of how Ellen feels guilty for having invited his attention, and even in some way enjoyed it; a despair which destroys Ellen's nice middle class life? The answer can easily be both, and you can apply the same to other elements.

Today is also the first anniversary of Bat's death. I've been feeling a bit weird about it all day. I wasn't sure how to commemorate the occasion, but spending time with loved ones and watching a movie which contains at least a certain amount of monster fucking seems in retrospect to be quite fitting.