Chances are, most people know what Nosferatu is. They may not think so, as many people may not want to watch a German silent film that came out in 1922, but it is a familiar story. If you know the story of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, then you know the story of Nosferatu. In the early 20th century, a German filmmaker named F.W. Murnau wanted to adapt Dracula, even though he did not have the proper rights to do so. He strove to retell the story anyway, simply changing the characters’ names. In fact, the original film was so close to the written work that the Stoker estate sued the filmmakers and won, leading them to demand that all of the prints of the film be destroyed. However, they did not listen and saved a few of them, and because of that, people like Robert Eggers were able to see it and be profoundly affected by it.
The story follows the basic text of Stoker’s novel, following Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), a real estate agent tasked with selling a house to a mysterious Romanian nobleman named Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard). What Thomas does not know, however, is that his wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), has a psychic connection with Orlok, who has been obsessed with her for ages. This sets off a series of events that spiral into insanity over the course of the film’s runtime, providing echoes of what were contemporary issues of the time, such as the Black Plague and women’s “melancholy” (the term used in the film).
Eggers has wanted to make this film for a very long time, even saying that he was ready to get started on it after finishing his first film, The Witch. However, I am glad that he waited until the past couple of years to get started on it, as there is a robustness and confidence behind the camera that may not have been there if this was his second film out of the gate. He makes many different choices throughout the film for the aesthetic and direction of his actors that could have gone very wrong in different hands. He has such a command over the tone and the mood of the overall proceedings that just about everything in this movie works. Eggers and Jarin Blaschke, his cinematographer, make even the most ominous images gorgeous, desaturating the film’s color to resemble an almost “black and white” aesthetic. In addition, everything about the film’s soundscape is remarkable thanks to Robin Carolan’s score that runs the gamut from gorgeous to frightening, as well as its fantastic sound design, created by a team led by Damian Volpe, which makes everything that Count Orlok and his forces do just that much more unsettling.
The performances are also uniformly great, with every cast member being perfectly keyed into Eggers’ vision. Skarsgard, through make-up and a remarkable voice transformation, truly disappears into an imposing, animalistic, and unsettling vampiric figure, who finds himself “afflicted” by Ellen, and he takes every line of Eggers’ luxurious, period-accurate dialogue and makes it count. For those who have not seen the movie, the trailers do not spoil the exact look of Count Orlok, so I will say nothing other than it is quite striking and it is a far cry from the regal vampire Bela Lugosi made famous in the 1931 adaptation of Dracula.
Hoult excels in what might be the toughest role in the film, playing Thomas as he reacts to and tries to comprehend the madness around him. Willem Dafoe has a wonderful time as Prof. Von Franz, a lively expert in the occult and the only person who truly understands the connection between Ellen and Orlok. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, and Simon McBurney also do very good work in their respective roles in the film. The standout, however, is Depp, who has to give a performance that has a remarkably high degree of difficulty. This is an incredibly physically demanding role, but also one that requires her to switch between fits of mania, depression, terror, and even lust, all of which is done completely naturally and in such a compelling way. This is the kind of performance that deserves an Oscar nomination, but outside of a few technical categories, this film is not getting the awards it deserves.
I will say that those who are not into the horror genre, and those who are squeamish, may not respond to this as well as I did. However, this is a visually sumptuous, eerie, disturbing, and thematically compelling film that beautifully brings Bram Stoker’s text to the screen, with a few modifications. Depending on your experiences with horror films and your willingness to try out films that may seem less mainstream, Nosferatu may be your affliction or it could end up being your melancholy.
Photo by: Noom Peerapong on Unsplash