SPOILER: In my 5 decades of enjoying film I thought that I had seen every genre
possible. Musicals, horror, horror musicals, foreign films, cult films
and independent all. I thought all my bases were covered. But as I sat
at the Bell Lightbox Theatre for a screening of A Girl Walks Home Alone
at Night, I was quick to realize that this was the first Iranian black
and white vampire film to hit my filmography resume.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night comes courtesy of writer/director Ana
Lily Amirpour who took her 2011 short of the same name and stretched it
into a feature film. A Girl Walks Home at Night focuses on a young
music-loving female vampire (Sheila Vand) who stalks the streets of Bad
City casually picking her prey. On a collision course to intersect
story lines is Arash (Arash Marandi), a young man with a prized car who
spends his days caring for his heroin addicted father (Marshall
Manesh). Arash and our vampire antagonist first meet after she feasts
on a local drug dealer, Saeed (Dominic Rains). Saeed supplied Arash's
father with the drugs that kept him incapacitated and the family debt
results in Saeed leaving with Arash's cherished car. When Arash heads
to Saeed's home in an attempt to reclaim his vehicle he finds Saeed
bloodied and dead with a briefcase full of drugs and money left
untouched on the table. Arash takes the briefcase and the new found
fortune commences a character arc that will eventually lead Arash to
meeting the vampire girl under a street lamp after a costume party.
The two leads spark up an unlikely relationship with the girl hiding
her vampire-ism from Arash as the non-sexual bond between the two
intensifies. But when Arash's father becomes a victim, things become
complicated and life-altering decisions are made in its wake.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is soft horror. Shot in glorious black
and white there are some scenes of blood and a few seconds of violence,
but the film is primarily rooted in the characters and Ana Lily Amipour
masterfully weaves the tale through familiar ground without losing to
the temptations of stereotypical checklist horror positions. The
overall body count is low and there is no abundance of secondary
characters and sub-plots to deviate from the original story.
Amipour uses a wide range of music from multiple genres which fit
seamlessly into the story as if she was tutored on the importance of
music in film by Quentin Tarantino. Some exceptional lighting used for
shading and shadows made A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night an intriguing
watch but not necessarily an important one. The film is slow. Maybe too
slow. And the characters are interesting but not involving. We
appreciated the style, but wished for there to be more meat on the bone
to keep us from having to focus on the lighting and music to pull A
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from meritocracy. Style took the film as
far as it could but the lack of anything truly original kept us from
wanting anything more once the screen finally faded to black.
Review of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
