Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” is a shocking, gorgeous and strangely beautiful viewing experience: it is mesmerizing in the most frightened way possible. Transfixing is the writer/director of “The Witch, “The Lighthouse”, and “The Northman” along with the other three films as while watching his works one feels surprised that he is a rare person who can set aside his modern sensibilities during the narration of the story. There are no metaphors or analogies, only astonishing events that quite simply unfold. There are witches and curses and there are prophecies and a vampire is a powerful beast not only able to change his shape and drink blood but also to violate shapes of reality at will.
The low rumbling and moaning sound present throughout the movie aligns with the perspective of Eggers’s portrayal of ‘Nosferatu’ from either a vampire’s or victim’s stance. The camera glides or moves around the room as people depicts the hallucinatory setting of fear embedded. Shadow looms over the landscapes and scenery presented, all combining to develop the quite the eerie atmosphere.
Merging the two sources, Murnau directed the original 1924 motion picture silent film Monferrato A Symphony of horror along with Francis Ford Copolla who released Bram Stoker’s Dracula a sci fi fantasy inspired silent film in 1992. In addition to these, the adaptation of the book ‘Dracula’ along with the 1932 Tod Browning movie also aided in the making of the movie.
Eggers admits to borrowing the love plot between Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) and Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) from an anime which he claims to be Tim Burton’s obsessional, stalker-esque love story that spans across time (the author and podcaster Robert Calhoun suggests that Coppola might’ve lifted that bit from the mummy). Ellen in Orlok’s eyes is the one true love who he wishes to invade with forceful sex while she sleeps.
Between the two, Ellen Hutter’s husband Thomas Hutter plays a key role (Nicolas Hoult aka the muy credulous man on his second outing in the world of Bram Stoker after renfield) He is in the quest of impressing a potential business client from a London based real estate firm and this prompted him to travel from England to the castle in hopes of purchasing it and changing the fate of his family, Unfortunately though, Hutter becomes increasingly obsessed with the beast as Orlok was with Ellen. Willem Dafoe, who has made a name for himself with a humorous yet serious take on cero terzuras vampires in Darkness Vampire is where he was first introduced as Albin Eberhart Von Franz a professor looking for a son.
It’s almost as if they’re involved in some surrealistic show, where they could pull off being an occultist off without their facial expressions giving them away; they experience difficulty in communicating to someone who is unable to fully comprehend the extent of dire situation they are facing, but look out for ways out of it.
Prior to preparing the screenplay for the film, Eggers conducted thorough research on history and folklore, something that can be considered to be a vital aspect prior to movie making. As a result, there is a fair amount of expectation that some novel elements of vampire mythology will be present in the movie. Looking at other vampire movies it can be said that a big portion of them heavily rely around preexisting vampires rather than books and research papers about them. There is a sketch of the essence of the thing that the protagonists are dealing with which appears to be only marginally linked to the visage that evil Nosferatu assumes while addressing mortals. It’s grotesque to say the least, a hunting beast, however, not entirely devoid of humanoid features.
What appears to be the “human” form that the film portrays is different from the standard bald, fanged, and clawed version of the Nosferatu. This version of the nutcracker is an evil one and needless to say the portrayal is absolutely captivating. He indeed has the characteristics of being dead, or undead, with charred skin that has slightly started turning gray. He has put eerie significance in the character of Skarsgard. It does sound deep, filled with anger and gets sad at times. The visualization captures a movie set designed in a way that lets you feel the sound rather than the other way around.
Let’s put it this way: Being typecast in horror just as It was released has not gotten Skarsgard as far as being in the tighter leagues of history with great actors and he seems to be on the cloth of becoming what Chaney was back when. And to say that horror was upon the greatest actors of history would, the sympathy be claimed it was because of being afraid of being a gift as they claim it to be. Chaney was an actor that turned himself visually up into physically abnormal actors after the silent generation; if turning into disparate grim. It wouldn’t be wrong to say this is the best role he’s been cast on but what’s not there to grasp… is the portrayal. This isn’t taken as a performance, but rather an ugly piece of art unlike no other; It’s darker than allowing to be put into a tomb and rather crafted in a camera. The rot is practically overwhelming.
Depp isn’t behind her performance: while Skarsgard is buried in make-up, Depp rather twists and shakes her limbs to put forth the idea that evil is intriding her; in this case, nosferatu. According to reports, all of Depp’s astonishing movements were done un-aided due to effect but if true, I wish her back a good regain. At the end, hunters the Rainbow’s end character carried this movie because she understands these emotion or things that remain unknown to everyone else.
In this celluloid clad civilization, Eggers’ does not give the audience the privilege of theoretically drifting outside the film to treat the plot like a mania. Much of the people in the film are ignorant of Freud and Jung. It is commendable how the director makes one feel that zna is not familiar with them as well, and that all the images and references are not the outcome of superimposing research onto the narrative, but are rather a happy accident.
As a different perspective, the film is simply an entertaining captivating film and a history lesson at the same time. Most vampire movies do not evoke the same sense of terror felt by the English during the Victorian Age when they considered traveling to Eastern Europe, which was ironically viewed as a dark realm. When going to large cities, people were treated as outsiders. During that period, Gothic romance and horror fiction were both birthed. There was a link, especially concerning the “dark, mysterious, and attractive” hero,” and several thematic elements intertwining with the foreigner who had a strong desire for her yet could not win her over.
The movie is a stunning feat when it comes to the logistics and its technical aspects. The weather elements such as the wind, the rain, and the dark seem to work on command for Nosferatu. It appears that the malevolence of the monster’s malevolence makes the movie to distort and malfunction.
The movie incorporation modern technology but quite relates to the first 3D films available over the past century. In comparison, it is reminiscent to how the archaeologist who discovers a cursed artifact and refuses to read it because it is filled with numerous depictions of evil, treated the original ‘The Exorcist’. It somewhat ashamed to say, but the pure evil and malevolence was depicted in the very movie poster and could only be seen by someone who wanted darkness to lurk in the shadows.
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