Cineanalyst
After reading Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," I've been seeking out a bunch of movie adaptations of it. I wouldn't have guessed that my favorite would turn out to be a ballet movie made in the style from the silent film era, but it has. "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" does many things well. As an adaptation, it succeeds because it focuses on and accentuates a couple major themes from the novel and doesn't get bogged down in details of faithful rendering of the book or peripheral nonsense, such as the movies that turn the gothic horror story into a romance, or about the historical Vlad the Impaler, or both. As a silent-film ballet, it succeeds by the marriage of two mute art forms and by integrating the editing with the music and the camera within the dance rather than outside it as a spectator.Stoker's novel is about many things--it's a relatively long, even too long, book, after all. No movie has, should or could encompass it all. The ones that some people claim have come closest (Franco's 1970, the 1974 and 1977 TV-movie, or Coppola's 1992 versions) tend not to be very good adaptations or even very good movies. The better ones, including the 1931 films and the 1922 "Nosferatu," or even some of the Hammer splatters, and this one, stray considerably from the word of Stoker, but they all do a few things well. This one concentrates on the sex and xenophobia inherit from the novel. We get the xenophobia part from the start, as words blazed across the screen shout about the threat of a foreigner from the East landing on the shores of England. Casting an Asian performer in the role of Dracula was a stroke of genius, as it has considerably more resonance in today's West than would yet another incarnation of Bela Lugosi's suave, Latin-lover type. Later, the xenophobia is tied in with money--literally, a casket full of cash that Dracula sneaks back to his home country--which also has more resonance today, where racism is frequently rationalized as economic. The fear of miscegenation that Dracula's bloodsucking on Englishwomen presents is, perhaps, less of a panic nowadays, but it ties these two major themes together.And, boy, does this movie bring out the sexual subtext of Stoker's tale. The blood transfusions of Lucy play out like a gangrape. Others had made this connection before in readings of "Dracula," of blood as a stand-in for semen--that of the Englishmen being used to combat the exchange of fluids from the foreign Dracula. But, it's one thing to read and think about the subtext; it's another to see it so visually and vigorously implied. In the first act, Van Helsing's examination of Lucy also includes a rough gynecological look. From here, the sexual references continue to pour. Lucy, as a vampire, is attacked by the men again--this time all bearing especially phallic stakes, or spears or pikes, to poke her with. Later, the men turn their weapons upon the sisters/wives of Dracula with gusto equal to their blood donations, and despite the homoeroticism of it, upon Dracula, who they leave impaled upon the phallic object.Not content with merely male sexual aggression, however, there's also a brief glimpse of Harker's stay at Castle Dracula, which is consumed by imagery of the lustful female vampires. To combat this foreign threat to her betrothed, Mina even attempts to perform fellatio on Harker in a scene akin to that of the blood transfusions on Lucy. This episode is brought on by Mina reading Harker's account of the fem vamps in his diary (hence the movie's title), which along with an earlier scene of Van Helsing stealing Lucy's journal, alludes to the epistolary structure of Stoker's novel, which was largely composed of diary entries. The sets for these later acts involving Mina also contain pathways suggestive of vaginas--contrasting with the phallic pikes otherwise employed throughout. You don't have to appreciate Freudian film theory to understand this stuff; it's blatant. One title card even reads, "cuckold's counterblow," as the Western heroes attack the vampire's lair.This is a gorgeous and rhythmic picture. As many of my IMDb reviews will attest, I've long been a convert to appreciating the silent film era. Oddly, although I've long known about Guy Maddin's postmodern tendency to adopt this era's style, this is the first movie of his that I've seen. It's clear that he knows how to compose an image and how the silent art form enhances this. The use of framing, such as irises, and filters, petroleum jelly on the lens for soft focus edges, slow motion and other image distortions, sound effects, dissolves and tinting/toning are exceptional. The sparing use of color, including for red blood, and the lighthouse strobe light in the first act are especially nice touches. And I've never seen two silent art forms--the silent film and ballet--integrated like this before.Although I'm a fan of silent films, until now, I've never much appreciated ballet. At university, I had a class where we were tortured with a statically-filmed, live-ballet performance. There's not much worse in filmdom than a camera that forces one into the position of a second-generation theatrical spectator--removing any benefits of the live performance and leaving only static dullness. Here, however, the camera is part of the performance; like the human performers, it dances. Additionally, the quick editing style is in rhythm with the music. The effect is immersive and visceral. As with the actors of the silent film era, who used a system of gestures adapted from theatre to express their characters, ballet has its own expressive codes. Thus, not only are the performers' expressions enhanced by cinematic elements such as the close-up, but, here, also by transmuting it through another art form that relies upon coded gestures. The themes from Stoker's novel are likewise enhanced by the transmutation.(Mirror Note: Dracula's lack of a reflection isn't addressed, but there is a beautifully-done scene of Lucy looking in the mirror.)
UnderworldRocks
This film may not be the best adaptation of Dracula, but it is definitely the most special version.Bravo! It combines the charm of a silent film with the beauty of ballet. How unique it is! Throughout the film, one can hear no dialog, only music. Ideas are conveyed through graceful dancing movements. Never seen anything like this! A vampire film done like this, WOW!Seeing Dracula portrayed by an actor who looks Asian is also very interesting.What ruins the film is the finale. What happens towards the end makes absolutely no sense. Apparently, Dracula killed the small group led by Van Helsing, including the leader himself. Then later suddenly these dead guys all miraculously came back, and staked Dracula to death instead. What is also incomprehensible is that Mina took up a crucifix to repel Dracula while she, being a newly made vampire, was not affected by the holy item at all.These faults/plot holes stopped this film from being the best Dracula adaptation on my list. The ending certainly remains to be tweaked a little bit.So far, the best adaptation of Dracula is a 2002 Italian version called "Dracula's Curse", which is my favorite.Forget about that crap by Francis Coppola. That 1992 version is an insult.
MisterWhiplash
What does it mean exactly to say that Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary is stylish? Movies that, conversely, have a seeming "lack" of style like a minimalist movie ala Jarmusch em to get the short end of the discussion, while Maddin tries his hardest to make his images and movements of cinematic dexterity *pop* like cracking of knuckles on a movieola. It is a crazily inspired vision, stylized with urgency and a force to be reckoned with as far as taking silent film and pushing it into a new kind of expression: the ballet. Whether or not this will please people looking for a solid Dracula movie is another matter, since it isn't much, at all, a coherent telling of the Stoker story.And maybe rightfully so; people need to know right up front that Pages from a Virgin's Diary is one of the most unconventional vampire movies ever, and not because it changes around anything with the myth or even with many of Stoker's characters (although there is a Cowboy or other in the film that I don't remember in Stoker's story or Coppola's film). It's the expression of the story, told through the characters dancing and going through pantomime and detailed choreography that is both dazzling and frustrating. Unless you're really heavy into ballet and dance, after about half an hour some of this becomes just too much, and too much in the repetitive sense. Characters also keep popping up with title cards extended for them, but with the exception of Renfield (who's given a face by the actor that is remarkable), I couldn't entirely follow who was who, except that a Chinese guy drifted in and out and turned to be a vampire, yada-yada, etc.I shouldn't be this dismissive of the story, or the manner in which it was told. And, besides, I didn't go into the film thinking I would get an instant classic of the most noted (maybe too noted) source of vampire lore in history. What I did get was a fever dream, nd kaleidoscope, and experiment tossed into a blender of 1920s expressionism given more freedom than ever with 21st century technology, and hints of what was to come a few years later with Sin City's attempts at giving black and white film-making some "color" from time to time. The symbols come flying out almost as much as the dizzying camera-work, sometimes going as fast as the dancers, and for someone looking for just inspired direction on a familiar theme this is definitely where to look; in fact as far as the kind of Nosferatu story goes, this is as daring as Herzog's film.It just isn't entirely involving on an emotional level, and Maddin sets it all up and knocks it down like a very small-range technical exercise. Few exercises are this exhilarating or with such inventiveness with the process and history of film-making, but it's an exercise nonetheless. B+
