REVIEWS Vampire REVIEWED BY ANTHONY KAUFMAN
Popular culture has brought us teen vampires, pre-adolescent vampires, drug-addled vampires and cowboy vampires. Now, in his first English- language feature, idiosyncratic Japanese film- maker Iwai Shunji offers us the vampire as an enabler of suicide. Far from the traditional conventions of the
genre, Shunji favours a more oblique, lyrical approach. His vampire, Simon (Zegers) is not exactly a blood-sucker, but rather a shy high- school biology teacher who carries around a col- lection of syringes and four glass jars for the purposes of blood letting. He meets his first victim, a young woman who goes by the name Jellyfish (Castle-Hughes) in a desolate car park. We soon learn they have made a suicide pact:
“Have you ever wondered how we’re going to die?” she asks. It just so happens Simon has a great idea: it is painless and as easy as falling asleep — and she can go first. In one of Vampire’s many dreamy sequences, Jellyfish, splayed across a long white storage freezer as the blood drips from her veins, willingly succumbs to her fate. If this set-up were not weird enough, Simon
lives at home with his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother (a grunting and wincing Amanda Plum- mer), who is set up in a strange contraption —
PANORAMA
Can-US. 2010. 101mins Director/screenplay/ cinematography/editor/ music Iwai Shunji Production companies Rockwell Eyes, Convergence Entertainment International sales Fortissimo Films,
www.fortissimo.nl Producers Iwai Shunji, Tim Kwok Production designer Alexandra Rojek Main cast Kevin Zegers, Rachael Leigh Cook, Amanda Plummer, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Adelaide Clemens, Kristin Kreuk
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party-goers into his cab, wherein the stranger, who goes by the nickname Renfield, asphyxiates and then rapes a random passenger. The scene is such a turn-off that Vampire strug-
gles to recover: its brutality feels especially out of place and the movie would be best served by its complete removal. Vampire works better when it is outside, amid
the lonely, sad vistas of its damp Seattle locations. And when Shunji focuses on the delicate fragility of life and death. In one episode, Simon hooks up with a prospective suicide named Ladybird (an appealing Adelaide Clemens) through a website called Side by Cide. After a quasi-sexual encounter in the forest
involving a sort-of straitjacket attached to more than a dozen large, white balloons — to keep her from fleeing the house. The film’s interiors are par- ticularly bewildering, with the digital-video-shot wide angles and self-conscious art direction mak- ing these spaces all the more off-putting. One extended sequence about a third of the
way into Vampire begins in such a house, as a small group of Goths and serial-killer groupies gather to celebrate their fascination for the macabre. The sequence goes from weird to dark to freak- ishly perverse, as Simon accompanies one of the
involving the sucking of blood left from leeches, Simon and Ladybird develop a sweet, strange relationship which gives Vampire some much- needed warmth. Similarly, a tentative connection Simon finds with a suicidal Japanese exchange student provides the movie with its most tender sequences. Far less successful is the appearance of Rachael Leigh Cook as a nosy love interest, who stumbles on Simon’s secret life. While uneven and overlong — an added
coda feels particularly unnecessary — Vampire addresses some engaging notions about the value of life and human connectedness, with a pro- found sense of sympathy. As far as commercial prospects are concerned, Vampire may travel the film-festival circuit and survive on home enter- tainment, but theatrical box office may lack bite.
Meet the Distributors Feb 12, 13, 14 and 15, 14:00–15:00 Four leading documentary distributors will briefly introduce themselves, the profiles of their companies and what kind of documentaries they are looking for.
Meet the Makers February 12, 14 and 16, 11:00–12:00 The session series introduces producers, directors and other film profes sionals, who have done a remarkable documentary. The sessions will be based on case studies where “the makers” will share their insights and insides about documentary filmmaking.
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n 26 Screen International in Berlin February 12, 2011
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