A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
(2014) 101 min.
Rated: NR (gore, nudity)
Country: USA
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Stars: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★★
A lonely vampire walks the streets of Bad City and watches the goings on of its residents at night.
Synopsis:
Arash (Marandi) is a guy who owns a nice car and lives with his drug addicted father, Hossein, in Bad City. Saeed the pimp and drug pusher who got Hossein addicted in the first place takes away Arash’s nice car in a small form of payment for the debt Hossein is in.
Arash is frustrated and gets back to work as a gardener for a wealthy family. The owner’s daughter, Shaydah, asks Arash to fix her TV. Arash makes an excuse to be alone in the room with the TV and takes some of Shaydah’s jewelry.
Meanwhile, Saeed meets with his prostitute, Atti for his money. Saeed tells her she’s getting old at thirty and Atti then performs fellatio on him as they sit in Arash’s car. But someone is watching them from the distance. Saeed pushes Atti off after seeing the figure in the distance. He tells Atti to get out of the car and refuses to give her a cut of the money she earned.
The Girl (Vand) who had been watching walks off into the night and later crosses paths with Saeed but says nothing. Saeed invites her back to his house. He does a line of cocaine as the Girl watches on. Saeed tries to seduce her by running his finger along her lips and she takes his finger into her mouth for a moment. She then bites off his finger and Saeed reels back in terror.
The Girl spits out his finger and moves towards him, running the severed finger along his lips as he did to her. She then attacks him, killing him. She removes his jewelry and looks through his music collection for anything she may like. Meanwhile, Arash is outside the gate of Saeed’s home, waiting for him. Instead he sees the Girl leave in her long black chador and seems to ignore the bloodstains on her shirt.
Arash enters the home and quickly takes his car keys from the corpse of Saeed before leaving.
Hossein is no longer getting the drugs he needs and starts to pester Atti. Atti will not listen to him at all unless he has money and Hossein wanders the streets a bit at night and sees the Girl staring at him. The Girl mimics Hossein a little until Hossein runs off scared.
Arash attends a party where Shaydah is along with other young people. Shaydah asks for the drug X which Arash supplies as it seems he’s now taken up Saeed’s role. Shaydah encourages Arash to take a pill himself. Arash takes the drug and moves in to kiss Shaydah, but she pushes him away.
Arash pulls away from the party and wanders down streets aimlessly, still high. The Girl finds him and talks to him. He introduces himself as Dracula, which is the character he’s dressed as. He says he needs to sit and that he’s lost. The Girl takes him to her home.
He spends the night with her listening to music and doesn’t return home until the next day. When he does return, he’s tired and forgetful. He seems to be in love.
The Girl follows Atti one night and shows her all the jewelry she stole from Saeed. Atti takes her to her tiny apartment and the two women talk. It’s revealed that Atti wishes to save up money to get out of Bad City and travel.
Arash leaves a note for the Girl to meet him by the city’s factory. They meet and he offers her a hamburger which she doesn’t eat. He also offers her the stolen earrings from earlier. Her ears aren’t pierced. She asks him to pierce her ears and he does so. She puts the earrings in her ears. They grow close as if to kiss but she tells him he doesn’t know all the things she’s done and that she’s bad. She walks off.
Hossein has a fit and breaks pictures. Arash throws him out of the house with some money and drugs.
Hossein finds himself with Atti and asks her to dance for him. She dances for a while and he asks her to have fun with him. He then ties her hands together and injects her with drugs against her will before injecting himself. After that, the Girl arrives and attacks Hossein, killing him. The Girl and Atti move Hossein’s body.
The next day Hossein’s body is found dead. Arash sees him and is deeply troubled. He gathers all the money and belongings he has and goes to find the Girl. He finds her and tells her to pack her things to flee with him. He then sees his pet cat, which had been thrown out with his father. The Girl has been keeping the cat. She also puts handfuls of jewelry and watches into her bag. Arash now knows she may have something to do with the death of her father and Saeed.
They take their belongings and the cat and drive off in Arash’s car. For a moment Arash stops the car and contemplates what he’s about to do. He then re-enters the car and looks at the Girl, puts a cassette tape in the tape deck and relaxes as they drive off.
Review:
This is a film that takes place in a fantasy city in a middle-eastern Persian-speaking town. It’s filmed in black and white.
I don’t know what I can really say about this film, but it’s all style. It’s all art and mood. If you aren’t into slow-paced moody art films, then you may not be into this film. For those of us who don’t mind a minimal dialogue film, then this will be a real treat.
It’s kind of a vampire love story that isn’t too heavy on the romance and is just in it for the heavy stark black and white visuals.
There’s very little gore to be had in this film, but when it’s used it’s effective. This is definitely not a scary film by any means, but it definitely fits into a nice vampire romance about two lonely people who live in a shadowy town. It’s a bit like “Let The Right One In” but doesn’t have as much of a sinister tone.
The film is filled with nice cuts of music that immerse the viewer in this world. From more traditional ballads to modern pop in Persian. There seems to be no film score aside from the music playing in the daily lives of the people of this town, but the setting is so immersive that I didn’t even notice the lack of a score.
It’s, in my opinion, well filmed and well acted. I think it’s a brilliant addition to the genre of vampire movies and I recommend it to any vampire fan.