Nadja

This film was one that I think I discovered when looking for sequels, remakes and versions of films of Dracula. I believe this is a semi-remake of Dracula's Daughter. I had seen this years ago and didn't remember much aside from it being an arthouse take. I've given this a rewatch for my Foray through the Fours.

Synopsis: members of a dysfunctional family of vampires tries to come to terms with each other in the wake of their father's death. Meanwhile, they are being hunted by Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) and his hapless nephew.

We start with Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) talking to a character played by Nic Ratner. This is an interesting way to introduce her, telling him about her family and about where she's been. We then see her biting his neck and drinking his blood. She is a vampire as well as our title character. What we'll learn is that she is the daughter of Dracula. She is accompanied by Renfield (Karl Geary) who is her slave. She learns that her father is dead.

This then takes us to meet Jim (Martin Donovan). He is boxing when his wife enters the gym. This causes a distraction and his coach, played by Jack Lotz, knocks him down. Her name is Lucy (Galaxy Craze) and she informs him that his uncle has been arrested for murder. They leave together.

It goes over to the morgue where Nadja and Renfield want to retrieve her father's body. She uses her ability to charm the man at the desk, played by David Lynch. We don't see what happens, but we learn later that he can't explain what happened. The body is gone though.

Jim's uncle turns out to be Dr. Van Helsing. They're at a diner so he can explain what happened. Apparently, he doesn't think he killed a man, but he was already dead with a stake in his heart. When he finishes eating, Van Helsing needs a drink. This annoys Lucy.

Nadja then meets her at a bar. She is lonely and interested in Nadja when they meet due to her accent. They go back to Lucy and Jim's apartment. Nadja is fascinated by their pet tarantula. What she doesn't like is the Dracula doll on their Christmas tree. They end up making love, which seems to lean Lucy getting bitten.

Secrets are revealed through this group. Jim finds there is something off about his wife. Van Helsing worries that she could be bitten. Nadja visits her twin brother, Edgar (Jared Harris), to ensure he knows what happened to their father. He's sickly. They have different outlooks on being vampires and she helps cure him. He is being aided by a nurse he met when living out west, Cassandra (Suzy Amis). This group has more in common than they realize when Nadja takes Lucy, forcing Van Helsing and Jim to seek the aid of Edgar. This all goes back to the old country as well.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I'll start is by saying this is an interesting film. This is a post-modern vampire movie that mostly takes place in New York City. It is interesting because Dracula was originally written with a vampire that is living in Transylvania and then going to London. The version of that city from the novel is not bustling metropolis, yet it still has more victims for him. This could still almost be a sequel to that though since it is taking place in the 1990s, aside from how it truly ends.

Let me then discuss how this is a remake of Dracula's Daughter. I've only seen that sequel once, so I don't remember how that played out. I know that the titular father character isn't in it due to a contract dispute with Bela Lugosi. I do know that there were lesbian undertones which are more in the forefront here. Lucy is attacked by Nadja. There was flirting there and the former brought the latter home with her. This is cheating, but I am more forgiving since vampires have the power to hypnotize their victims. Lucy doesn't even remember the next morning. This can be seen as a commentary on doing things while drinking with no memory the next morning. Jim loves Lucy, but it doesn't seem to be reciprocated. I do like how this is managed here.

I'll then incorporate filmmaking here with other aspects to discuss. This is an arthouse film. It is filmed in black and white, despite being made in the mid-1990s. This is a passion project for sure with great actors, even just in cameos. It doesn't have a big budget, but I think it does well enough in hiding the seams there. This is borrowing heavy from Dracula, just telling the story differently. Instead of our villain being that vampire, it is Nadja. It is fitting that our damsel in distress is named Lucy. It is ending in Transylvania, while not actually being shot there is great. I'll credit the cinematography and framing for doing what it can here.

This is also limited in the effects it uses, but it doesn't need them. Being filmed without color hides that. The blood looks real thanks to it. I also found trivia where scenes where it gets blurry were done on a Fisher Price toy camera that wasn't made long. It had low resolution so that helps with a surreal feel. I credit the experimentation there. I'll also say that the soundtrack was fine for what was needed.

Then to finish out with the acting. Löwensohn was good here as Nadja. I like that we start by meeting her so when she becomes our villain, there is still humanity there from what we know. Fonda worked on this for the minimum and he plays a quirky Van Helsing. He is also Dracula, with his face hidden, which is fun. That is playing the opposite characters. The film debut for Geary and he works. He isn't given much. I like Donovan, Craze, Amis and Harris in their roles. The cameos by Lynch and José Zúñiga were good. No issues there. The acting fits the atmosphere needed and helps bring their characters to life.

In conclusion, this is an odd film. I like what it is doing for the most part. We are taking a familiar character and story, then doing something different with it. It is strategic to remake a film like Dracula's Daughter which has interesting things to say, but it is lesser seen. I like the experimental nature of this arthouse film. Not everything works, but trying it gets credit in my book. We have a solid cast being led by Fonda and Löwensohn. The rest help to round this out. This won't be for everyone. There are lot of vampire films out there so one that tries something different works for me.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.

A strange, disarming feeling sits over this film, as if everyone is in a semi-comatic haze. That's a good thing. While a bizarre mix of humor, horror flick, and psychodrama, it also draws from (and pokes fun at) the vampire flick tradition. Full of highlights, not the least of which is a ratty haired Peter Fonda.

In New York City Nadja, her brother and their slave come to terms with the murder of their father by Van Helsing. Meanwhile the girlfriend of Helsing's nephew, Jim, is taken as a drone by Nadja. Jim and Van Helsing set out to stop the reign of the Dracula family and stop their blood lust.

I didn't even know this was about the Dracula legend when I sat to watch it, just the title drew me and the cast sounded quite promising. The black and white, shaky shots, post modern slant and grainy camera work were both a draw and a turn off for me. On one hand it was very arty, deliberately sticking a finger up to the mainstream. I dislike this feeling - one that the multiplex crowd are unworthy of any film and that the director wouldn't care to have their film be successful and hence uses such things with abandon. However it also made the film much more imaginative and interesting if it had all been full Technicolor with steadicam and nicely framed shots, it was pretty hip and I enjoyed it even if I felt like it was aimed at the art crowd rather than just being a film for anyone or everyone.

The story is quite good, albeit just a twist on the old story of Dracula. The script is where the main difference lies. It is quite talky a film but it is better for it. The dialogue is a little pretentious at times but it is interesting and involving. In terms of characters I'm afraid it falls down quite badly - the grainy images and dialogue that is far from `down to earth' stop the characters from ever being real people or even characters that I felt deeply involved in - but happily it wasn't to the point that I was completely disinterested in them. That's not to say it was great - but it was different enough to keep me interested, even if I wasn't gripped by it at any point. Likewise with the direction, I felt there was imagination but that it went too far to the point of just being experimental and arty for the sake of it. If you are making a film with as good a cast as this had then why on earth would you use a child's camera unless you were trying to be arty? This mindset did feel through the whole film and it was, as I've already said, a pretty big turn off for me.

The cast is great on paper but they struggle with the pretentious dialogue and the fact that the film loses them in a grainy black & white world. I will always watch Donovan but that doesn't mean he's any good. Here he is alright but has precious little to actually do! Fonda is better and plays his character with a sense of humour that the wider film could well have benefited from - I wonder if the director got annoyed by Fonda not playing it straight when he clearly had arty aspirations. Lowensohn is not only beautiful but acts well in the title role but the astonishingly named Galaxy Craze was pretty much cardboard as Lucy.

Overall this is an interesting movie but it struggles under the weight of it's own pretensions. I found it to be different enough visually and script-wise to be interesting and even I found the apparent concerted effort to alienate the mainstream to be slightly off putting. An interesting effort but one that will irritate far more viewers than it will please.

I've just read all of the reviews on this film on this site and nobody even mentions what this film is really about. Like any "good" horror story it works on different levels. Like the Zombie films of George Romero there's an underlying message to this film that has nothing to do with it's horror exterior. But you have to think about what Michael Almereyda is trying to say with this story. This isn't just true of this film, but of all good horror. Dr. Jeckyle and Mr.Hyde-Addiction to substances, Frankenstein-Man playing at being God, Dracula-Hate poisoning the mind and soul. The main theme of this film is wanting to change your life but not being able to escape your old habits and break loose. It's even mentioned outright several times during the film by different characters. There's a lot of philosophical discussions by different characters on this through the film.

This film has black humor, meaning of life philosophy, camera work that serves a purpose to enhance the story and heart felt dramatic performances by all of the actors and actresses.

One of the things that I really like about this film, (and one of the things that many people didn't understand or like) was the use of the toy camera pixel-vision effect. I found it to be a perfect way of economically expressing the intoxicating effect of being under the influence of a vampire. If you watch the film and think about the scenes where it's employed it will be obvious. It isn't just a random attempt to be arty as many of the reviewers seem to think. It's a visual depiction of the impaired state of mind that you might experience if a vampire was psychically manipulating a mortal. And it enhances the film it doesn't detract from it. Whether you like it or not, film-making is an art. Just like painting, drawing, writing or any other form of expression. Some filmmakers just don't have any sense of art, they only wish to mindlessly entertain. That's why people say things like TV rots your mind. Well, I guess that if you watch anything in a mindless manor that could be true. But film that has something to say, something to think about is a worthwhile use of time and intellect.

I have a fairly large collection of "horror" films and "Art House" and I can tell you that Nadja is one of my all time favorites. Every time I watch it I see something new, get a different little joke or notice different connections that I didn't get before. I also enjoy many of the "Mindless entertainment" variety of Vampire films,and so a quote from the writer David Goyer who wrote the screenplays for Blade, "Sometimes you just want to see somebody kick some ass!".

Most people don't realize how huge the genre of Vampire Cinema really is. Dracula is the definitely the most filmed character in film history, and the greater tree of Vampire films in world cinema is so big that it almost impossible to accurately list. Of the Art House and Vintage, comedy and Vampire Hunter categories I would recommend checking out some of my favorites. Many Vampire films are a hybrid of two or more of these categories,but they all have different points that I find attractive,humorous, exciting, entertaining and thought provoking. Again, I haven't seen but a small selection of the huge list of Vampire cinema, so it's likely that I'll be leaving out many excellent selections and maybe some of your favorites in this list. I'm giving this list because the film Nadja could very well be enjoyed if you like some of the films that I like and have been entertained by.

Art House and Vintage: Nosferatu 1922 (The original granddaddy Vampire film from the silent era. The Kino Version is worth paying for with an excellent soundtrack option featuring musicians from Art Zoid), Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog), Shadow of the Vampire (a fun comedy-fictional story based around the making of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu-1922), Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer's atmospheric masterpiece, even though part's of the film were created by accident!),Dracula (1931), The Hammer Dracula series (feartuing the great Christopher Lee), Dracula-Pages from a Virgin's diary (a modern silent film of a Canadian Ballet company filmed by Guy Madden), Blood for Dracula (also known as Andy Worhol's Dracula), Immortality, Ganja and Hess, Habit, Near Dark, Salem's Lot (Based on the novel by Stephan King-the original mini-series, I haven't seen the newer remake) Bram Stoker's Dracula (The love it or hate it classic by F. Coppola).

Some of my favorites from the Vampire Hunter sub-genre: The Blade Series (Again one of those "Love it or hate it" series for some.), John Carpenter's Vampires (This one is hard to classify, lots of comedy too.), The Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter films by Hammer studios, The Forsaken, and the British TV series "Ultraviolet" (an X-Files type mini-series). Also worth mention is the Japanese-Anime films Vampire Hunter D-Bloodlust (You'll forget that you're watching a cartoon, the story's that good!), and Blood-The last Vampire (A short but well done film).

Some of the comedy genre: Innocent Blood, Modern Vampires, The Breed, Dusk to Dawn (I've only seen the first one, a hybrid of Tarantino's crime style and Robert Rodriguez's horror style), Vampire's Kiss, and Interview with the Vampire (I find this Ann Rice film quite comedic), and Lost Boys (A local favorite being that I live in Santa Cruz).

Nadja is one of the jewels of my collection because it is truly a multi-faceted piece of film-making that defies categorization.

I saw Nadja at the Vancouver Film Festival, and was struck by its freshness. The use of the toy camera with the pixelated (fuzzy) image during the more violent scenes added a nightmarish quality, making it more frightening. Good performances, especially from Peter Fonda who played a wacked-out Dr. Van Helsing character.

One of the more original vampire movies of late. Not just for the goths.