Review of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) by Daniel S — 07 Jul 2015

Vampires have had a rough time in the English-speaking world of cinema recently, with the Twilight series turning them into soulless, socialist dullards as well as the barrage of B-star vehicles saturated with visual effects such as the woeful Dracula Untold. Even the Sperig brothers from Australia couldn't quite make the new great vampire film after 2009's Daybreakers morphed from a great concept to a mindless action brawl more befitting the abysmal noughties Van Helsing. In the rest of the world however, vampire based films such as Sweden's Let the Right One in and Russia's Night Watch duology have been expanding the mythology in new and culturally exciting ways.

So, could A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, an American production, change this for the English-speaking world? No, and yes.

Ana Lily Amirpour's first feature film, which was crowdfunded on the basis of an intriguing 2011 short film, may have been filmed and produced in southern California, but its setting is a world out of time in Bad City, Iran. Drug dealers and prostitutes wander the streets, patches of dry plants do little to hide the groaning machinery, and young, greasy haired James Dean lookalikes clean vintage cars constantly. Certainly you'd be right at home thinking this was a 50s drive-in movie (On the Gazafront?), but the Persian street signs and women in chador cloaks help establish a setting. Oddly enough for the juxtaposed culture shock, moments of misogyny, such as a pimp forcing a prostitute to commit oral sex with horrifying servile language, ring true in a Western world, and perhaps it is Amirpour's intention to show that what the West demonises about the Middle East is all too close to home.

Amongst the cast of characters, all named in the credits with their Sergio Leoni-esque pseudonyms such as 'The Pimp' and 'The Junkie', our protagonist is Arash, played by Arash Marandi, who has already been called "the Persian James Dean". His existence is one of survival, doing his best to cure his ailing father's heroin addiction, to keep out of trouble with a grotesque pimp, and to win the heart of his employer's spoilt daughter, Shaydah 'The Princess'. Arash is immediately likeable, being verbally bullied by a small child in a heart-warming opening, and Amirpour continues to crank up the sympathy for his simple existence. In a deserted world where survival is key, Arash seems to be the only one not fighting for his own. Lyle Vincent's camera lingers on Arash's shy interactions, giving his audience small and telling insights into his psyche. Everything is slow and small during these sections. And then The Girl arrives.

If a black chador, black-and-white striped jumper, and heavy lipstick and mascara doesn't become 2015's go-to Halloween costume, then it will be a sad sign that this character has not played to the audience she deserves. Sheila Vand's The Girl is far more about drastic action than Arash, with her opening attack on The Pimp through forced cannibalism of his own finger more blatant a feminist image than burning a bra. The night stalker immediately has a presence onscreen which will catapult her to the top of the best vampire leaderboard; Amirpour fiddles with a combination of superbly contrasting lighting and a slight hint of a Western audience's Islamophobia to create a superb shadowy figure, who feels both audacious and yet steeped in the rules of the vampire mythology. Excluding one slightly jarring attack on a homeless figure, misogyny is punished by its opposite bogeywoman.

Beneath the chador however, Vand plays a different character entirely, a kind of vulnerable 60s flower child obsessed with band posters and slow records. The monster of The Girl clad in black with blood-stained lips is really the innocent schoolgirl which an audience would expect with the chador on. This appears to be Amirpour's intention and indeed comfort zone, since Vand played a similar role for her director earlier in the short film Pashmaloo. Whatever she does, The Girl is a hypnotic enigma. Amongst an audience there is nothing less than entrancement for her, whether she is swaying to a White Lies record or brutally slaughtering her next victim.

Yet despite her sudden attacks, the citizens of this almost abandoned neighbourhood carry on as if nothing has happened, a display of Darwinian instincts. Amirpour clearly understands this template of supernatural justice, an element which shows the mark of a true horror film (ie if it is actually about something), and this time appropriates it on a feminist slant. Doubtless she could not have produced the film in Iran, with the political nature of the state against cinema still raging against all filmmakers in particular Jafar Panahi, but there is still something within the film's morality which feels definitely Iranian. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is as thought-provoking as Abbas Kiarostami's Ten yet as visually stylish as The Third Man.

With all of its influences however, Amirpour's feature feels remarkably fresh and original. She conjures a world which feels utterly real despite its pulp noir model. Despite one too many snail-pace scenes (an intimate dancing scene goes on for the length of two full songs!), I was immersed in Bad City, and wanted to remain there for longer or to revisit as soon as possible. Call it what you will, "the first Iranian vampire western movie" or "the first Western Iranian vampire movie", A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a gem and a modern classic which should not be missed.