Nosferatu

 

It is said that director Robert Eggers' longtime fascination with the 1922 film NOSFERATU has informed his body of work.  Also, Bram Stoker's Dracula, which inspired the original silent.  Since Eggers' debut THE WITCH I have turned out for each of his Gothic, grey soaked atmosphere pieces.  Some have been more successful than others.  It was inevitable that the director would eventually realize his own version of F.W. Murnau's Expressionist classic - 2024's film of the same name.  Perhaps it seems a little early in Eggers' career to take on such a formidable adaptation; it is only his fourth full-length feature. 

I had no doubts that the new NOSFERATU would be immersive in its cinematography and art direction.  Robert Eggers is one of the few true artists working in film these days.  He shoots on 35mm. Meticulously follows period detail.  His films are works of art, aside from narrative or thematic considerations, though each are only enhanced by the visual and aural design on display.  A guy on a forum once wrote "It's the fucking form!" when describing how to consider a film's worth.  Exactly.

This 19th century tale is well known.   Under the promise of a sizable commission, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) journeys to the castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) in Transylvania to sell him Grunewald Manor in the town of Wisburg, Germany.  In between wheezes and barely heard forbodences, Orlok, who is an emaciated, odious vampire, expresses delight that he will now be neighbors with the young man, who is married to Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp).  Hutter is unaware of Orlok's connections to and the ramifications of his wife's recounts of terrifying yet pleasurable recurrent dreams of a dark figure who will accept nothing but her eternal love/bondage. 

But Swiss philosopher Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe, quite into the role) will learn and understand the truth of this very real connection.  Preceding this attempted union the Count will become Death itself, a plague upon all he encounters.  Often in the form of an army of rats.

Eggers' really goes for it in his version.  I don't recall Werner Herzog's take back in 1979 to be this explicit.  Some viewers will be repelled by the film's sexuality, and it is arguable whether or not it needed to be so vivid, its inclusion so on the nose of the film's subtext. The violence is mostly cloaked in Jarin Blaschke's desaturated color photography but quite formidable.  Everything is technically astute.  The atmosphere, what I again consider the most important element in a film (or at least as a scene setting starting point) is perfect.

But the emotional connection runs mostly ice cold.  The cast is fine, though none had me sympathizing or feeling anything for their plights.  Surely it is the material itself.  So devoid of joy or hope, so aloof.  NOSFERATU doesn't work as a tragic love story.  Doesn't quite drive a stake into our hearts.  Maybe that's a cheesy reference, but appropriate, I think.  It is a tragic story that looks amazing and stirs our minds.

Eggers, who also scripted, is not some brat who got a decent budget to irresponsibly follow his whims.  He has great reverence for this story and its era.  I can't imagine him making a contemporary film.