‘If you
only see one Iranian vampire western this year, make sure it’s this one’.
Based on an award winning short film with the same title, Ana Lily Amirpour’s
debut feature film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is a darkly brooding
atmospheric movie that emits menace in every frame, a modern day Spaghetti
Western shot in stark black and little white, a film that also brings to mind
Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert
(1964) and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin
City (2005).
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| The James Dean lookalike Arash .... |
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| ....and The Girl. |
A lone skateboarding
female vampire stalks the nocturnal streets of the fictional Iranian town known
as Bad City. A city haunted by its industrial past and surrounded by bobbing
oil derricks, a city that reeks of death and despair, a city that would seem to
have very few residents. One such resident is the James Dean lookalike Arash
whose prize possession is a gleaming classic two-seater sports car. Others who
make up the minimal characters who fill the long silent grainy shots are
Arash’s junkie father, his prostitute and her heavily tattooed drug dealing
pimp, all of whom have a series of encounters with the mysterious hijab clad
bloodsucker. Although surprisingly The Girl is falling in love with Arash, which
in turn may just spare his life?
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| The prostitute.... |
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| ....and her pimp. |
Although set in
Iran it was actually shot in Taft in Kern County, Southern California. The
movie stars Arash Marandi as Arash, Sheila Vand, best known for her role in Ben
Affleck’s Oscar winning 2013 movie Argo is
‘The Girl’ and Atti the Prostitute is played by Mozhan Marno who played Soraya
M in The
Stoning of Soraya M (2008). There is no doubt in this bloggers opinion
Amirpour’s first feature film outing is a cult film in the making and will
definitely stand the test of time with its memorable images,
style and tone backed up by a brilliant soundtrack.
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