Aaron S. Bayley
Those who watched Robert Eggers' first three films—The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman—cannot have been surprised by the look of his latest effort. Based upon Bram Stoker's classic narrative and inspired by both F.W. Murnau's silent 1922 film of the same name and Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, Nosferatu is an insatiable symphony of sight and sound and establishes Egger as one of the great filmmakers of his era.
Blanketed in muted grey hues and drained of saturation and colour, Nosferatu is cold and dark, with shadow and light creating gorgeous chiaroscuros in almost every scene. If any CGI special effects were used, I didn't notice them.
Set in 1830s Germany in the city of Wisborg, the set pieces and costumes are elegant and true to the period. The story begins with Thomas Hutter, a timid, sincere real estate agent (played by Nicholas Hoult) who is tasked with traveling to the Carpathian mountains to secure the sale of a decrepit castle to a mysterious Count Orlok, played by Bill Skarsgård. Meanwhile, his young bride Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), who is haunted by a history of ghoulish nightmares and panic attacks, pleads for him not to go. The actors are superb, setting a serious, urgent tone throughout the film, which makes Nosferatu all the more believable. Depp, in particular, does an outstanding job of navigating her emotions, going from moments of tranquility to extreme psychological and physical states. Later in the film, Eggers' slightly mad professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (modelled after Stoker's Van Helsing), played perfectly by Willem Dafoe, adds a much needed element of understated humour to the film. As the only character who comprehends the deep, psychic connection between Orlock and Ellen, von Franz's frantic warnings lead to fiery arguments from those who cling to conventional science and reason to explain Ellen's erratic behaviour.
As Orlok descends upon Wisborg, the town is plagued by rats, providing a convenient cover for Orlok's macabre machinations. The scene where the shadow of Orlok's ghastly hand flies slowly over the city's rooftops is both eerie and exquisite. But perhaps the film's most breathtaking scene occurs when Hutter's carriage makes its way through the treacherous Transylvanian hills, the cloud-obscured moon shining its light upon Corvin Castle looming in the distance.
While Eggers' use of shadow and light for dramatic effect is outstanding, the star of the film is Skarsgård's Count Orlok. Only glimpses of him are seen throughout—it is not until the spectacular, penultimate scene where we see his face in all of its monstrosity— but it his voice wherein fear, fright and revulsion lie. Skarsgård employed the assistance of an opera singer to help lower his voice. The result is a terrifying, sepulchral baritone where every vowel and consonant is painstakingly articulated. "You are late, young man. It is almost midnight. My servants have all retired," announces Orlok with equal parts hospitality and horror as he guides Hutter up a spiral staircase.
Of all Eggers' films, Nosferatu most closely resembles The Lighthouse, but the arrival of Dafoe's scientist midway through the film moves the plot along and prevents the film from being too avant-garde. The score is unsettling and several scenes are punctuated by a crescendo of dissonant sound as they near their climax. The tagline for Nosferatu is "succumb to the darkness" and the film is certainly haunted by a foreboding and sense of impending doom, as Ellen's eventual death is a result of her inability—and perhaps unwillingness—to resist the force of evil incarnate as represented by Orlok. Many will find this disconcerting, but Nosferatu is not a film about romance or good overpowering evil. Nosferatu is a film about the fraught relationship between eroticism and decorum and between temperance and desire, with gorgeous sets, sincere dialogue, and a truly gruesome final scene. As such, Nosferatu is a gothic horror masterpiece and the new gold standard for Bram Stoker's Dracula narrative.
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