Love is Woman!

In Eggers' Nosferatu, Thomas, the protagonist's husband, is in search of financial fortune and is willing to embark on a long and dangerous journey to meet what will turn out to be a monstrous creature bearing horrors, death, and pandemics. He will undertake this journey despite being discouraged by his wife. Through this "being" living in Romania, he will complete a deal that promises him financial security. The wife, on the other hand, is sensitive and romantic; her sensitivity borders on premonition, and her extreme purity makes her the sacrificial victim of Nosferatu's toxic, totalitarian love (the creature that seeks to possess her and has tormented her forever), and also of her husband's neglect. In another era, the protagonist would have been a goddess to be worshipped, but in nineteenth-century Europe, she is a victim of the male. Eggers amplifies this theme, turning his film into a feminist work where, through extreme sacrifice, the woman transforms from a victim into a savior, while Thomas remains uncertain and Nosferatu is annihilated.

Eggers' new feature film is the third cinematic version of Nosferatu, which is actually Bram Stoker's Dracula. The director of the first film, due to rights issues not granted by the author's heirs, had to change the names of the characters and certain parts of the story. It's impressive how, in 2024, the American director managed to create a new version that flirts with the earlier films. There are expressionist flashes like in the 1922 film, the extreme romanticism of the 1979 version, but Eggers adds moments of carnal sexuality and, unlike Herzog, he is not lenient with the character of Count Orlok (Nosferatu). The Orlok portrayed by Herzog appears at times to be a more sorrowful figure than an evil one, resigned to the curse of immortality. The character brought to the screen by Eggers is more ruthless, inclined to subjugate, deceive, and carry out both physical and psychological violence. For Eggers, Orlok represents the horror of the male authoritarian. If the 1922 film was a metaphor for the evil about to emerge in Germany (Hitler), with its allegory of such evil represented by the plague, for Eggers, the plague recalls the Covid epidemic experienced a few years ago. In the 1979 film, it reflected the political situation in Germany divided by the Berlin Wall. Politics and entertainment, horror and sociology. Eggers updates the original work, filling it with discussions on the validity of science and the clash between rationality and irrationality. The discourse on trust in science became more relevant than ever during the Covid pandemic.

Nosferatu challenges the thinking of Hannah Arendt, who argued that evil is never radical and does not have a demonic dimension. In the film, evil not only has a demonic sphere but is more radical than ever—it is absolute, claiming victims mercilessly. It does not just spread on the surface, but snakes its way into the souls of humans. It challenges rational thought, which tries to explain it logically (once again the theme of science and traditional medicine). Victims of evil find themselves face-to-face with the frustration of being unable to explain it. The characters in the film can only experience it, until they die from it.

Impressive is the entire technical apparatus. Quinlan, when writing about Murnau’s Nosferatu, mentioned that there are no peaceful shots in the film. The same can be said of this latest film. The mise-en-scène is powerful, the camera movements are slow and catatonic, with well-timed jumpscares, the sound design is monumental, and the historical reconstruction is flawless. Nosferatu does not give the viewer any respite. It disturbs, frightens, and the dreamlike sequences have a breathtaking pictorial power.

07-Jan-2025 by Emanuele