IR Film Review: NOSFERATU [Focus]
The specific context of this new look at the classic vampire tale is bathed more in gothic textures of grit than romanticism which marked the last time a major director really took a swipe at it. Here, Robert Eggers knows the story he wants to tell but also the bleakness in which he wants to tell it. With “Nosferatu,” the story is methodical but it does tell all the beats you know though slightly changing the names and order per se. Nicolas Hoult plays Thomas, the would-be Harker who heads to Translvianja to sell a decrepit house in London to Count Orlock played by Bill Skarsgard. Hoult, like most of his recent performances, is a little too obviously making him less of the time and more of the present.
The richness of Skarsgard’s character is that most of the time you cannot even see him and when you do the eyes are what does it. The question becomes where does Bill begin and Orlock end. It is masterful in many ways but almost removing since he does feel more like a ghost. The more visible but different role is Lily Rose Depp’s Ellen (aka Mina) who at one point when Thomas returns shows the push and pull between Orlock’s intense nature and pull and the want she wants to remain Thomas’ bride. Now granted all of this takes place within the societal norms of the day. But “Nosferatu” is not romantic. It is simply a story about power and death, not an altogether foreign context that Eggers deals with.
Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin play friends of the couple who try to help but get pulled in unwittingly but also consequently. One scene particularly is brutal but it solidifies that there is nothing redeeming about Orlock. This is not a sympathetic vampire. That said the prologue really suffers in losing the context of Vlad The Impaler in Coppola’s version since that is what motivated that vampire. Orlock is cold and Ellen is brainwashed here though she does eventually understands the sacrifice she makes whether it is her choice or not, The ending scenes verifies that…in a very visual way, to say nothing of the plague that surrounds them. And the fact that Willem Dafoe is the least weird character in this filkn does say a lot. B+
By Tim Wassberg
