A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Staci Layne Wilson
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Starring Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Dominic Rains, Marshall Manesh, Mozhan Marnó, Milad Eghbali
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
Do you consider yourself a vampire movie buff? If so, what is your favorite kind of fang flick? Are you an action junkie (Blade)? Or maybe you prefer romance (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). Existential (Vampire’s Kiss) or more on the erotic (anything by Jean Rollin) side, perhaps? Regardless, you’ve probably never seen anything quite like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.
Set in a fictional and desolate Iranian town called Bad City and written and directed by first-timer Ana Lily Amirpour, the story follows the Girl (Vand), a skateboard-riding vampire in a hijab who quietly and gracefully wanders the lonely nights in search of prey. She’s got traditional canine fangs and she does drink from the living, but she’s not your usual bloodsucker.
To say much more would spoil the story – which implies there’s a story. Really, it’s more a mood piece – but the characters she encounters are all fully-realized, fleshed-out folks. Arash (Marandi) is a hard-working young man whose pride and joy is his 50s American hotrod; Saeed (Rains) is the ruthless drug dealer who takes the car in payment for Arash’s addicted dad’s debt; and other creatures of the night round out the cast – including a sad-eyed streetwalker (Marnó) and a prepubescent urchin (Eghbali).
While the film fest description of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night as a “vampire noir western” is a bit of an overstatement, it is shot in lusciously silvery black and white with long shadows and ultra wide masters reminiscent (at times) of The Third Man. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’s DP is Lyle Vincent, who’s done a lot of great work and knows how to use the monochromatic palette to its fullest. Augmenting the visuals are the Middle Eastern melodies of Bei Ru, the underground Iranian refrains of Radio Tehran and Kiosk, and the spaghetti western-inspired tunes of Federale.
While the title A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night pretty much tells you you’re not in for an adrenaline-fueled blood fest, it’s worth stating that this is a very introspective, slow-moving, languid story that takes its time in unspooling. But it’s beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, and lovingly directed – it’s well worth a look.
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