I’ve seen it twice now. The first impression held. I’m basically in love with it. A vampire stalking an Iranian town. A vampire in a full chador.
It’s an incredible first feature, written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour.
My review of the extraordinarily pleasurable A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Sheila Oh this sounds intriguing, great review, and I want to see this too! Sheila stop putting up all this great stuff I’m trying to get out of the house!
Regina – Ha!!
I was thinking about our fascinating conversation about Only Lovers Left Alive as I wrote this. I would LOVE to hear what you think. It’s luscious and gorgeous and a bold bold vision. Truly WEIRD, too.
I think it’s at the Film Forum??
Cleary Jarmusch-inspired, but definitely its own thing.
And the music!! Another vampire movie where music bonds people together. I need to get the soundtrack.
Oops – no my mistake – it’s at the IFC Center.
http://www.ifccenter.com/films/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night/
There have been some amazing interview with Amirpour – I’ll track some down and post them. I loved her thoughts on music, and style – and also on Iranian film.
She was like, “I’ve always wanted to do an Iranian film – but of course … I can’t do one in Iran …” That fact stopped her imagination for a long time – until she figured out a way to do it.
Hugely talented woman!!
Here’s a good one!
http://www.indiewire.com/article/ana-lily-amirpour-is-the-raddest-filmmaker-working-right-now-20141120
“A film can be like a dream. It’s a fairy tale. It’s not beholden to rules or laws of the real world. I have no loyalty to the real world. Fuck the real world. Why would I make a film to try and show you what it’s like here? It’s what we get everyday. I think it becomes about things that are romantic and interesting to you, to me. So yeah it’s definitely out of space and time with a logic that a dream would have, which doesn’t necessarily follow the rules of physics, you know? There’s so much weird shit in your dreams.”
I am so jazzed for this one. And that poster is one of the best I have ever seen – what can we do to get more posters like that, instead of disembodied actor heads?
I love the poster too! Inventive – and man, it makes you want to see the movie, right??
Oh, and would love to know what you thought of it when you see it!
Thanks Sheila for the fascinating interview with Amirpour, and info where it’s playing, I can’t wait. I will report back! And Yes! That simple poster drew me in right away, I felt like I wanted to see this even before reading anything.
Yay! I love that the director is so young that she asks the interviewer questions like, “Have you seen Back to the Future?” Uhm, of course he has. Ha!
But she has that fresh-ness about her attitude – like she’s discovered everything all for herself. I’m very excited by her work!
a feminist Farsi-language black-and-white vampire Western. Yeah. I think she’s just created her own genre.
Did you see that you got a mention on the Daily Dish on this one?
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/22/of-fangs-and-farsi/
Fab!
Ahhhh! Had no idea! Thanks for the heads up!!
The commentary has been very interesting – some of a bit too earnest for my taste (I love that Amirpour said that the only really feminist character in the film, from her perspective, was the pimp – because at least he was offering the women employment. Ha!) – but most of it (the positive stuff anyway) has been all about the cinema, and how dreamy it looks and feels. It contains images you’ve never seen before. A vampire in a chador. On a skateboard. You know. And it feels so RIGHT.
The film could have been empty and way too “hip” for its own good – I found it truly emotional.
VERY glad to see all the praise coming in for it.