Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Caleb Landry Jones
Clara (Arterton) and her daughter Eleanor (Ronan) are
vampires, physically ageless since taking on their immortal state (thus making
them more like sisters than mother and daughter). Having lived for over
two-hundred-years travelling from town to town, Clara works as a lap dancer and
prostitute. When Clara commits murder to protect her and her daughter’s
identity, they move away to a former hotel on the coast known as “Byzantium”
owned by Clara’s new lover (Daniel Mays). Clara turns the hotel into a brothel,
whilst Eleanor begins a romance with a teenage boy (Jones) with leukaemia. Will
Eleanor’s relationship with the boy grow without her letting slip the secrets
of her life?
Having made his name with Interview With A Vampire: The
Vampire Chronicles (1994), Neil Jordan returns to old territory with Byzantium
(an adaptation of A Vampire Story, a play by Moira Buffini), but giving the
genre conventions of vampire films a new twist. Byzantium, despite its
trappings, isn’t really a horror film (despite the occasional strong
bloodletting) but a drama. The use of drama at the expense of horror is nothing
new to vampires. Before Stephenie Mayer’s Twilight series of books, there was
The Lost Boys (1986), Werner Herzog’s atmospheric 1979 Nosferatu remake and
George A. Romero’s overlooked gem, Martin (1977)to name a few that all served
this idea. Byzantium also has strong stylistic links with Daughters Of Darkness
(1971) and the tradition of Hammer horror films (there’s even a brief scene
that uses footage of Dracula: Prince Of Darkness (1965)) fortunately, the film
is spared the obvious danger of going to exploitative levels (which is at least
partly what’s expected when you hear the combination of Gemma Arterton,
brothels and, given their historical representation in cinema, female vampires).
However, when the
film does make a point of going in its own distinct direction, it fails to
adequately set up its own rules and ideas. Unique ideas in this film (nails
replacing fangs for bloodletting, the pseudo-initiation into vampirism) seem to
be put in for their own sake rather than for any justification in the story.
The two stories across generations (contemporary and period) juxtapose nicely,
but the tendency in the period pieces to lapse towards drama does rob the film
of the realism that is seen in the contemporary sequences. However, the film’s
period detail is often gorgeous and is, generally, where the strongest parts of
the film reside. Saoirse Ronan puts in an expectantly strong performance and
most of the major roles work well, helping a project that could’ve been disastrous
stand on its own. All in all, when Byzantium is bad, it borders on the
ridiculous, but when it’s good, it really shines.
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