world inside his skull while great philosophical movements are changing Europe (“heads will roll”). Dracula, in contrast, is a white-bearded, bouffant-haired presence who wheedles around the woman he needs to bleed and utters cries of pain and terror on their behalf after biting them. In one of the character’s oddest screen introductions, the film comes upon Dracula sitting in the long grass in daylight with a woman he is trying to inveigle back to his castle, “where there is no place for Christianity” (just as Casanova quotes Montesquieu in saying that Rome would be more beautiful without churches). We see Dracula from behind, observing his finely-sculpted black hair, before the camera creeps round to show his pale face and heroic beard. The women these creatures come across glumly submit—in one case, Casanova deflowers
a girl with his fingers only for Dracula to steal in and lick up the blood—but have their own agenda for “wickedness,” which is as much about getting out from under patriarchs like the re- ligious father (who, along with an ox, is the film’s major sacrifice) as becoming their playthings. Dracula interviews prospective victims as if he were a needy employer while Serra’s represen- tation of vampirism is so aus- tere that, by comparison, Carl Dreyer’s VAMPYR seem like a Terence Fisher Hammer film. Casanova takes advantage of women because of his position rather than his (dimming) at- tractions. Altaió boldly makes Casanova grotesque, yet hu- man: balding under his tatty wig, unshaven and rouged, graz- ing on an endless variety of foods (including shit and blood), while acknowledging rather than
contributing to philosophical debates.
The approach invites ridi- cule, and its length and even pace are patience-testing. The longeurs, of course, are at least partially the point, forcing the viewer to strain to discern mean- ing and terror in video-transfer-to- film darks between the moments of wry, strange comedy. This is the epitome of a not-for-every- one film, and indeed your recep- tion of it might depend as much on mood as taste, but it is a considerable, worthy, eccentric achievement. Second Sight’s region-free DVD has a great transfer of a film which must have proved a challenge to mas- ter. The frame is 2.35:1, with a choice of 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby sound and optional English subtitles. The sole extra is Serra’s warm, performance-based short Cuba Libre (2013, 17m 55s).
Dracula at the window in Albert Serra’s surreal historical romp STORY OF MY DEATH.
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