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As a lonesome young female vampire who's had to get a bit creative with the locals from time to time. Shot in black and white with slow direction and fantastic lighting this modern vampire love story gives a slightly different interpretation on the popular teenage vampire genre. Pay attention to the small props the director pays to past Vampire and Dracula classics. One such moment will flash a smirk across the face of anyone who's ever watch Bram's Dracula. If Fellini made a teen vampire love story, I'm certain it could look a little like this. Grab a fork and sit forward for a dark, but enchanting Iranian version, of a spaghetti western teen vampire flick.
At one point, she skateboards down the middle of an empty dark street, her chador flowing behind her like gigantic black bat wings. The Pimp thinks she might be a prospective streetwalker and invites her back to his place, turning up the techno music, laying out lines of coke on the table. She stands motionless in the background, a shrouded, staring figure. People do not understand what she is or who she is, until it is too late. In many ways, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night feels like an American genre film. For instance, the opening sequence introduces us to the character of Arash , whose white T-shirt and jeans, sideburns, and vintage Ford Thunderbird evoke an explicit James Dean aesthetic.
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When the girl is pushing Arash home on the skateboard, the clicking of the wheels do not match the passage of the wheels over the sidewalk cracks. Director Ana Lily Amirpour, who bears a somewhat similar resemblance to Sheila Vand actually performed the skateboarding sequences in the film for the the long shots. Ashar drives away in the night with the Girl and Masuka on the co-driver's seat. He stops in the middle of nowhere and gets out of the car. He nervously walks in front of the car's lights. Finally, and in complete silence, he gets in again.The Girl puts on a cassette on.
She looks to be her employer, as Ashar is doing a little gardening. She looks like she has had a nose surgery job and an obnoxious brat. She is on her mobile phone speaking to somebody about going out. Arash sees a pair of earring and thinks of stealing them to pay for his father's bills.
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By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Amirpour’s vampire, then, is the embodiment of a hybrid figure who exists somewhere between the cultural references of America and Iran, between life and death, always in between.
We know absolutely nothing about The Girl, but there is a pattern...unlike women in Iran, she has a certain, albeit supernatural power, and she uses it to punish men who have bullied others and wallowed in vices. Even if I'm only reading into this, I thought this was liberating in the context of the culture that's old and rich but traditionally repressive against women. Back home, he takes a glass of water to his father, who tells him that he should die and leave him alone. Arash pets Masuka while the attache and its contents are by its side. Saeed is showing off his car in front of a prostitute called Atti (Mozhan Marnò), who gets into his car.
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Their encounter turns violent when Atti asks for her cut of the money she has earned; Saeed refuses to give it to her and instead violently drags her out of the car and throws her to the ground. The Girl watches their encounter, lurking in the dark. This was one of the most anticipated art-house horror films.
She persuades Saeed to take her back to his apartment. While there, she grows long fangs and first bites off his finger, then goes for his neck, killing him. As she leaves, she passes by Arash, who has come to offer the earrings for his car.
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The film’s American- and Western-ness is further established by the spaghetti Western musical score that plays underneath it all. The score functions as the heartbeat of the film, placing this work firmly in European and Western genre conventions and traditions. Shortly before The Girl appears in the scene, we watch two characters, Saeed and Atti , in a car. Saeed represents the cliché pimp, covered in tasteless tattoos (such as “SEX” across his throat and “jakesh,” or “pimp,” on his scalp). Atti is a prostitute who works for him, the victim of both Saeed and the patriarchal society of Bad City.
Atti asks if the Girl is a thief, and she replies "no". A young rockabilly-looking youngster picks up a cat . It is young Arash, , an Iranian young man. On his way back to his car, he is bothered by a begging kid . He is despondent and leaves, claiming to have no money. 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.
Finally, Arash crosses the line and then stares at the lights while weird looking people around him dance in the dance floor. Arash tries to kiss her, but he gets rejected and she dances with somebody else. Sit on the screen, the tension within the frame dissipating, the image a beautiful picture but with no further revelations to be had within it. Stasis can make the film sag, on occasion, slacken and lose that taut weird otherworldliness. For the most part, though, Amirpour helms the ship confidently and with a lot of love and care. This intriguing Iranian vampire film unfolds in the perpetual night of Bad City where "the Girl" searches—sometimes on a skateboard—for her next meal.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was shot over the course of twenty-four days, in the town of Taft in Kern County in southern California. Artsy fartsy at its "best", nicely filmed and with some interesting choices of music, but with no plot to speak of and several scenes that just keep dragging on. Residents of a worn-down Iranian city encounter a skateboarding vampire who preys on men who disrespect women. Stay up-to-date on all the latest Rotten Tomatoes news! Tap "Sign me up" below to receive our weekly newsletter with updates on movies, TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes podcast and more. This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia.
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We are usually left with a bloody and shallow horror piece devoid of any real sense of dread and that showcase the filming techniques employed and the environments used. If you like horror films or really anything unique and original that keeps you guessing, then this is a great piece of film that is a refreshing change of pace from most modern horror schlock out there. The characters we meet are archetypes, made strange when in service to Amirpour's unique vision. There is Arash , the kid with the vintage car who lives with his heroin-addicted father Hossein . Arash deals drugs, too, as well as taking odd jobs as a gardener on the isolated rich side of town, having a tense flirtation with a rich girl who calls him into her bedroom.
The subversive rebellion of “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.”
Additionally, Bad City, the fictional location in which the film is set, may perhaps be a nod to Frank Miller's Sin City. Atti, a prostitute who worked for Saeed, is followed at night by the woman, and they retreat to the prostitute's apartment. The woman gives Atti the payment Saeed owed her. They have a conversation during which the woman realizes that Atti no longer remembers what it is to desire. Feel for that, merging the events onscreen to the song choice in a way that feels inevitable, in a way that opens up the scene.
The Girl shows her expensive jewelry and Arash's stolen watch from Saeed. The Girl sits down on a sofa and plays with an apple that Att has given her instead of eating it. Atti assumes that the Girl is a washout person who wants to become a prostitute. The Girl doesn't speak at first, but then she says that Atti doesn't like her job. Atti asks her why she is following her, and the Girl replies that she knows everything about her and that Atti doesn't know what she wants anymore, and that she can't even remember really wanting something. The Girl says that Atti is saving money but doesn't know what she wants it for.
