Daily Archives: January 6, 2025

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Films (Revised) (10) Robert Eggers – Nosferatu

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Theatrical release poster

 

 

(10) ROBERT EGGERS –

NOSFERATU (2024)

 

“He is coming”

My wildcard tenth place entry in my Top 10 Films as best film of 2024.

Yes, I know that I should technically include it in one of my genre film top ten lists – specifically my Top 10 Horror Films (although I will certainly add it to my special mention for vampire horror films) – but I’m substituting it for my previous Eggers entry in this top ten, The Northman.

Although come to think of it, there’s something of a running theme for horror or at least dark fantasy elements in all four of the films Eggers has directed so far – The Northman had arguably the fewest such elements, but Nosferatu follows on from the atmospheric horror of his first film The Witch, aptly enough as Nosferatu has been a passion project Eggers has had bubbling since then and he intended it to be his second film.

If there’s one thing for which Eggers is known, it’s for making mythic worlds – films that utterly and viscerally immerse their audience into the world of their stories, characteristically with “their central elements of mythology and folklore”, down to the finest detail.

He did it with The Witch, he did it with The Northman, and he did it here in his Gothic horror passion project. Indeed, I’d argue that he did it best here – for one thing he has the dark fantasy elements to play with from vampire folklore and for another he improves upon the more ponderous pacing that is arguably a side effect of his world-immersion to make his best paced film yet.

If you know Dracula – particularly the book – you know the central plot of this film. Nosferatu is a remake of the 1922 German silent film of the same name (also remade by Werner Herzog as the 1979 German film Nosferatu the Vampire which is the version I saw). That film in turn was based on the book Dracula, transferred to Germany (instead of England) with the names of characters changed to avoid copyright, most notably the titular vampire renamed to Count Orlok.

Forget the more suave depictions of Dracula or indeed any vampire – Count Orlok as he appeared in the original film (and the 1979 remake) was a distinctively grotesque figure, albeit perhaps unintentionally comic at times.

However, forget that unintentionally comic appearance at times here – as played by Bill Skarsgard (upping the ante on his previous eldritch horror depiction of Pennywise), Orlok is still grotesque but also a towering and terrifying figure of apocalyptic plague, literal and metaphorical. And that’s not just by sight but also by sound – with his reverberating, sepulchral voice.

He’s also gloriously moustachioed, evoking the appearance of Dracula in the book – in turn drawn from the original Dracula, Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler. You certainly get the impression of a literally larger than life Romanian nobleman, that has torn himself through centuries and swum through oceans of blood, both when alive and undead, by sheer size and force of will. And again that’s not just by sight but also by sound – with his accent and speaking what I have read to be a reconstructed form of the ancient Dacian language of pre-Roman Romania. That’s how far back the Orlok of Eggers’ film goes…

As usual, Eggers excels in the atmospheric and visual nature of his films – with the use of darkness so palpable here that it is virtually a character in its own right (and indeed usually is as part of Orlok). Much of the film has a dream-like quality, or rather a quality of nightmare – not coincidentally as Orlok has the power to invade the dreams or minds of his victims, being as much like a lich as he is a vampire.

That’s helped by the dark blue-tinted scenes at night resembling the black and white of the original film but also by the frequent firelit smoky scenes. Even in daylight, the scenes seemed to have a sepia tone.

The only drawback is the naked virgin on horseback – I would have liked to see much more of her, or even a whole film about her as naked virgin vampire hunter. Apparently she was played by a Czech model Katerina Bila – you’re welcome.

Although that also did prompt me to missing an appearance by Eggers alumni Anya Taylor-Joy – she (or her body double) always likes to get naked in his films. Don’t get me wrong – while I have thing for Taylor-Joy with those fey eyes of hers and it would have been interesting to see what she did with the central role of Ellen, Lily Rose-Depp succeeds in bringing an ethereal, otherworldly nature to the role.

 

FANTASY & SF

 

And how! The most dark fantasy elements of any of his films except for The Witch – and writ more large even than that film.

 

COMEDY

 

Eggers…isn’t big on comedic elements. So, no – or few and far between.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 Fantasy Books (10) Lev Grossman – The Bright Sword

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(10) LEV GROSSMAN –

THE BROKEN SWORD (2024)

 

As usual, this is my wildcard tenth place for most the newest entry of enduring interest, typically as best of the present or previous year – in this case published in 2024.

Lev Grossman isn’t a wildcard entry as I previously read The Magicians trilogy – which in a nutshell, combines a dark adult version of Hogwarts with a dark adult version of Narnia, Brakebills University and Fillory respectively.

In The Magicians, magic is dangerous. And it costs, usually in sacrifice or profound loss. That’s whether it’s the curriculum of spells in Brakebills University or other sources of magic elsewhere. To paraphrase Hemingway, magic tends to break everyone (although most of the magicians are somewhat broken in the first place) – but those that will not break, it kills.

The Bright Sword brings something of the same theme to Arthurian epic – or more precisely post-Arthurian epic:

“The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, complete with duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It’s also a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, trying to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves”.

Aspiring knight Collum arrives at Camelot to prove his quality for the Round Table – two weeks too late, as King Arthur has died at the Battle of Camlann with only a handful of his knights left, the self-professed dregs of the Round Table.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Second World Wars (1) Second World War

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Map of participants in World War Two by Svenskbygderna – Wikipedia “World War” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(1) SECOND WORLD WAR

(1 SEPTEMBER 1939 – 2 SEPTEMBER 1945)

 

Well, obviously.

In any Top Ten Second World Wars list, the Second World War has to be the top entry – alternatively you can think of it as the baseline for all other entries or the surface of the Second World War continuity iceberg.

So I define that baseline according to the conventional historical frame and timeline of the Second World War – the war against Germany and its allies, subsequent to its invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, outlasting the surrender of Germany itself for a few months against Germany’s last ally standing, Japan, until the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945.

Otherwise, the narrative of the Second World War is worthy of its own top ten – indeed several top tens – and is well known, even in popular culture and imagination, albeit often distorted or sensationalized. It featured almost every aspect of modern warfare, while remaining unique in others – not least being fought to a conclusive result and destruction of enemy states rarely paralleled in modern history.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Revised) (2) Homer – Iliad & Odyssey

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Homer Simpson as Odysseus from “D’oh, Brother Where Art Thou?” in “Tales from the Public Domain” (episode 283 – S13 E14) – aptly enough given his namesake and still one of the best televised adaptations of the Odyssey

 

 

(2) HOMER – ILIAD & ODYSSEY

 

The timing seemed apt as Christopher Nolan recently announced his planned cinematic adaptation of the Odyssey – and I had planned to swap this from its previous special mention to replace Bulfinch’s Mythology, so I’ve revised it into my second top spot in my Top 10 Mythology Books.

 

“Sing, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles”.

Also “tell me, Muse, of the cunning man who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famed city of Troy”

We’re going old school here, the oldest school there is – the Iliad and the Odyssey, the rosy-fingered dawn of Western literature, preceding even literacy as those two epic poems were performed or sung rather than written by their author Homer, with tradition holding that he memorized both and probably changed the story each time he told them. (And no, not that Homer, although I couldn’t resist using him as my feature image). Although everything about Homer – or is that Homers? – is contested, such as whether he was indeed illiterate, or blind, or a man (I do have a soft spot for the theory that while a male Homer authored the Iliad, a female Homer authored the Odyssey), or Greek, or indeed even existed at all, at least as a single person.

“The Greeks held Homer in something like reverence” – as they and everyone else damn well should have or should – “viewing his works as the foundation of their society, in much the same way as modern Europeans view the Bible”. As do I and have since childhood, in which they (or at least the Odyssey) have been hugely influential for me personally, comparable to my god-tier mythologies or books of mythology, such if you were to peel back the layers of my psyche you’d find them deep within it. Of course, that wasn’t because anyone sung them to me – although again they damn well should have – or even that I read them in their original poetic form, but as a prose adaption of the Oydssey for children, which still remains the version of the Odyssey lodged within my psyche. Sadly, I can’t recall the name of its author, except that it was female – aptly enough for that female authorship theory for the Odyssey or both, and aptly enough in that I recall it brought the female characters, upon which its protagonist heavily relies, vividly to life.

Indeed, the Iliad is my Old Testament and the Odyssey is my New Testament. Aptly enough, given the Bronze Age battle hymns of Iliad and Old Testament, or the hero’s return from death in Odyssey and New Testament.

And while we’re on such comparisons, the Second World War is the American Iliad and the Cold War the American Odyssey.

However, I have always preferred the Odyssey to the Iliad. When people think of the Iliad, they usually think of all the things that aren’t actually in it – the whole mythos of the Trojan War in what is usually referred to as the Trojan Cycle. Instead, the Iliad is an incredibly brief snapshot of the Trojan War – a few weeks or so in the final year of a legendary ten year war. And of course most of that is the greatest Greek warrior Achilles sulking in his tent, because the Greek leader Agamemnon deprived him of the booty, in both senses of the word, of a Trojan girl taken captive. Until of course Achilles’ boyfriend Patroclus is killed by the greatest Trojan warrior Hector – at which time, it’s personal. Well until the Trojan king Priam begs Achilles if the latter could please stop dragging Hector’s dead body behind him while doing victory laps in his chariot.

Ultimately though, the Iliad is just men killing each other and squabbling over women. The Odyssey on the other hand is a ten year maritime magical mystery tour – or dare I say it, Poseidon adventure, as the Greek hero Odysseus just tries to return to his kingdom Ithaca after the Trojan War, barely escaping death as he is tossed from flotsam to jetsam in one shipwreck after another from Poseidon’s wrath. I mean, seriously, he could have walked home faster from Turkey to Greece, although Poseidon probably still would have got him somehow. And he loses all his ships and men en route, returning home as lone survivor – and stranger, as even then he has to remain disguised as a beggar to infiltrate his own household and outwit his wife’s persistent suitors partying it up there. And let me tell you, every dog has its day. Literally and heartbreakingly, as he is recognized by his faithful dog Argos who has awaited his return for twenty years (only to finally pass away with that last effort). But also figuratively and with undeniable satisfaction as he outwits and defeats the suitors.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
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