It's definitely true that when you know absolutely nothing about this
movie beforehand, it might come as a bit of a shocker. It's a ballet
version of the Dracula story and if that wasn't already enough
originality and strangeness, it's also shot in a silent movie style.
Actually, I already was familiar with some of Guy Maddin's other work,
so I sort of knew what to expect from this movie already. He's a
director that loves to shoot his movies in a very stylish and old
fashioned style, often from the silent movie era. But it's not like he
just mimics the style, he makes it completely his own. It's like he's
always giving his own free interpretation of the genre and completely
reinvents it instead. Saying that this movie is done in an old
fashioned style does not mean you could compare it to older movies as
well. It's very much its own thing, which is also the foremost reason
why this movie works out so well.
Basically the foremost reason why this movie is such an intriguing and
perfectly watchable one, are its visuals. It's a spectacular movie to
look at, even though it's almost entirely shot in black & white. The
camera-work is very innovative and also helps to keep the movie going
at all times.
It was also quite interesting to see the familiar story being told for
most part from the viewpoint of the Lucy Westernra character. This was
actually a very good idea in my opinion, since her character perhaps
goes through the biggest transformations and is one of the more
interesting, yet mostly ignored, characters from the Dracula story.
What also was quite interesting was seeing an Asian in the role of
Dracula. It sounds odd but it actually was something that worked out
quite well. Wei-Qiang Zhang, as it turned out, was a very charismatic
choice, for the role of the well known and much portrayed blood sucking
count.
And as far as ballet goes; this movie does mostly a good job at keeping
things understandable and not all about its dancing and exaggerated
expressions from its actors. But I should probably say that if you
aren't familiar at all with the Dracula story, you probably will still
have a hard time following the story in this movie. But then again, who
isn't familiar with the Dracula story now days?
I should also probably admit that if the movie would had been any
longer, I would had had a hard time finishing it. The movie as it is at
times feels sort of overlong already, even while its only 73 minutes
short. Watching a completely silent movie, with dancing characters,
gets a bit of an endurance test after a while I guess but it still
remains an ultimately rewarding movie, by the end.
Visually and technically speaking, its a great and interesting,
original movie, that might not keep everybody constantly interested
though.
7/10
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