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Title: Nadja (2002)
Format: DVD
Score:
Starring: Elina Löwensohn, Peter Fonda, Nic Ratner, Karl Geary, and Martin Donovan
Director: Michael Almereyda
Rating: R (Restricted)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Hits: 125
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Review of Nadja

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Comments for Nadja

• Posted on 2008-10-24
  The pain I feel is the pain of fleeting joy
  
  Most vampire movies are all about blood, evil, mayhem, and big jutting fangs that could never actually fit in their mouths.
  
  Fortunately "Nadja" never falls into the usual vampire cliches. Instead it focuses on blood, fuzz and the dark snowy streets of Manhatten, and the vampires that wander through it after Dracula's death. Though it occasionally stumbles on pretension, Michael Almereyda's direction and Elina Löwensohn's ethereal Nadja turn this into a quiet gem.
  
  Dracula is dead. His daughter Nadja (Löwensohn) senses it immediately, and pledges to "start over," although Renfield (Karl Geary) is skeptical. As she wanders through New York, Jim (Martin Donovan) springs his eccentric uncle Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) from jail and gets a pep talk on Dracula and his past. But they don't know that Jim's unhappy wife Lucy (Galaxy Craze) is meeting the beguiling Nadja at a club, and the two of them end up having a brief lesbian tryst.
  
  But that encounter with Nadja is slowly transforming Lucy into another zombielike slave, even as the lovely vampire heads to Brooklyn to meet her dying twin brother Edgar (Jared Harris). But when Van Helsing and Jim try to try to stop Nadja, her vampiric nature is fully reawakened -- and now Van Helsing, Jim and Edgar must stop her before
  
  Technically "Nadja" is a remake of an old sequel to "Dracula," and a few parts of the newer movie show its origins. But other than that, it's pretty much a unique piece of work -- and while the art-house approach gets a little pretentious (that ridiculous story about butter) its haunting beauty is undeniable.
  
  Michael Almereyda takes an uber-realistic approach for this movie -- it's filmed in crisp black-and-white, with lots of stark lighting, shadowed apartments, and the occasional blurry blood/sex scene. The dialogue varies between plain and poetic ("I was born by the Black Sea, under the shadow of the Carpathian mountains..."), and has the occasional haunting monologue about Draculean offspring and "the pain of fleeting joy."
  
  Much of the plot involves the various characters rambling through New York, only to suddenly transform a full-fledged vampire film after Nadja's visit to her brother. As her vampiric nature starts taking over, the movie speeds up into a nightmarish showdown in an overgrown Transylvanian manor. And while the twist ending is a bit of a headscratcher, it's a suitably unconventional ending for an atypical vampire movie.
  
  For such a movie, you need a truly brilliant Nadja. And Elina Löwensohn is perfect -- exotically beautiful, dignified, and capable of both innocence and malevolence. She adds a dreamlike flavour to many otherwise prosaic scenes, whether she's wandering through the snow or reclaiming Dracula's body ("We have come for the body of Count Voivoida Armenios Ceausescu Dracula. I believe there is a wooden stake in the heart").
  
  The other actors do solid jobs with all their roles -- Peter Fonda is quite good as a mildly crazy, long-haired Van Helsing who drives his relatives crazy with his vampire obsession. Donovan, Craze and Harris do serviceable jobs with their roles. Karl Geary is a real standout as the sexy, moderately predatory Renfield, who is kind only to Nadja.
  
  "Nadja" is a vampire tale with an arty modern twist and a brilliant lead actress. Sometimes it gets a bit pretentious, but its beauty can't be denied.
  
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• Posted on 2007-06-15
  Worth your while.
  
  I had never even heard of this movie until I started researching David Lynch more thoroughly. He does not direct this film, but I think he was a producer. The film reads "david lynch presents:" i think. Anyways, thats why I bought this.
  
  I was pleasantly surprised by this. First of all, it features a couple songs by my favorite band: My Bloody Valentine. That alone shows the film makers had good taste. As far as the actual movie goes, its pretty surreal and sort of just floats along. Its hard to explain, I'm not much of a critic. It's not at all pretentious and it made me want to hunt down one of those toy cameras they used in certain scenes.
  
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• Posted on 2006-06-04
  interesting, but ultimately boring, horror-art film
  
  Nadja is a difficult film to review, if reviews are meant to guide others, partly because others' reactions will vary wildly. Cinephiles and Goths may regard Nadja as a profound masterpiece, whereas Fangorians might think it turgid crud.
  
  A black & white vampire film, Nadja falls into that small but intriguing category: the horror art film (e.g., Blood and Roses, Spirits of the Dead, The Company of Wolves, Gothic). Its cast includes such Hal Hartley alums as Rumanian-born Elina Lvwensohn (Flirt, Amateur, Basquiat, Schindler's List) and Martin Donovan (Flirt, Amateur, The Opposite of Sex), and is executive produced by David Lynch (who cameos as a morgue attendant).
  
  Nadja's plot is a lethargic (some would say moody) retelling of the Dracula tale in contemporary Manhattan. Lvwensohn stars as Nadja Dracul, Dracula's daughter. Early in the film, Nadja senses Van Helsing destroy Dracula, both roles played by a long-haired but balding Peter Fonda. In effect, Fonda "kills himself." I don't know what this is meant to symbolize, if anything, but throughout most of the film Fonda plays Van Helsing, as Dracula is now truly dead (except in flashbacks).
  
  And there are flashbacks aplenty. Every film school/art house gimmick is on display. The black & white photography is variously beautiful, rich, stark, stunning, moody, sumptuous, smoky, blurry -- everything an Anne Rice fan on acid could desire. Images are framed from every conceivable angle. Rainwater drips on the camera lens. Some scenes are shot with a toy Pixelvision video camera. (Yes, there are slow motion shots.)
  
  The soundtrack features diverse musical styles and discordant nondiegetic noises, sometimes fading in and out, sometimes cutting in and out with jarring abruptness. The black & white photography, discordant noises, and languid pace all evoke David Lynch's Eraserhead. (Yes, there are voiceovers.)
  
  Lvwensohn begins one voiceover amid sound effects while in her castle. We cut to events outside, and although her voiceover continues seamlessly, all else is silenced. Moments later, the sound effects fade back up. No real reason for this audio gimmickry, but some viewers may think it eerie. Some may even regard it profound.
  
  If it sounds like I'm reviewing form rather than content, it's because Nadja is about style rather than substance. This film is to be watched rather than understood. Its story is as disjointed as its editing. (Yes, there are jump cuts.)
  
  Characters flitter about aimlessly; only Van Helsing is consistently driven. Van Helsing destroys Dracula, then wants to destroy Nadja. He enlists Jim (Martin Donovan), who's sort of married to the boyish Lucy (Galaxy Craze), who is seduced by Nadja. (Lucy, as in Stoker's Dracula -- get it?) There's also a Renfield (Karl Geary), Nadja's "slave." Nadja also wants to nurse her non-vampire brother with blood plasma. Instead, Nadja seduces his lover/nurse Cassandra (Suzy Amis, of Titanic). (Yes, there are lesbian vampire sex scenes.)
  
  Nadja is burdened with flashbacks and jump cuts and torpid pacing and vapid dialogue, obfuscating a thin story. Many will be too bored to prune away all the pretty padding and make an effort to follow the story. Nonsense lines abound, often spoken in a monotone, Hal Hartley style. Jim stares blankly at Lucy while he expounds his love for her to Van Helsing. Lucy responds: "Tuesday I ate two diet cokes and a bit of pizza. Today I had some M&Ms." She's under Nadja's spell, but she's not all that different for it. Her conversations with Jim are both fatalistic and trite. (Yes, there's enough fatalism and pessimism and gloom in this film to delight a whole mausoleum-ful of Goths.)
  
  The story ends in Nadja's Transylvanian castle, which looks like an abandoned New Jersey tenement; the walls are brick rather than large cut stone. That's okay, it's an old low-budget trick. And the tracking shot of a Rumanian map is a stylishly nostalgic manner in which to depict the characters' travels. Goths especially will love the darkly draped bed Nadja shares with Cassandra.
  
  There is a "surprise twist" ending, but I saw it coming. So should anyone who is familiar with Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (a retelling of Carmilla, and a far better film). Since Nadja features a female vampire, one may argue that it too is informed by Carmilla rather than Dracula, but Nadja's character names are lifted from Stoker's novel, not Le Fanu's.
  
  There are some trendy modern themes. Nadja laments her dysfunctional family. Seems Dracula was a lousy dad. That, and the gender-bender lesbian sex, the long-haired puffy-shirted men, the vapid philosophizing that sounds profound if you don't think about it, and a film textbook's worth of cinematic stylistics, makes for a film that many an Anne Rice fan could stare at for endless hours, imagining that they were watching some insightful statement on transcendent love, or whatever. Others will be screaming: "Get on with it!"
  
  Nadja's story could easily have been compressed into a half hour short, resulting in a quicker pace without losing any substance. Its lavish stylistics are impressive, but its slight story, silly dialogue, lack of philosophical insight, and lethargic pace are a drag on the film. Nadja will enthrall some, bore others. I presume you, dear reader, know which camp you're likely to fall into.
  
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• Posted on 2006-02-15
  "It is like a Psychic Fax. I only bring this up because I am receiving one now."
  
  Great film shot in Black and white that is full of some of the best lines I have ever heard in any film. I mean COME ON!!! Peter Fonda is the Fearless Vampire Killer!!! Great Stuff.
  
  People seem to whine about the cinematography but why complain? Who here is creative enough to make a film with some parts shot with a Fisher-Price camera? Or brave enough rather. . .
  
  Outstanding Vampyre flick that forces you to wax philosophical on life for hours after the film is over. If you are an indie buff or enjoy low budget masterpieces, this film is for you. A must own.
  
  I have forced all of my friends to watch this once. No one has ever been sorry.
  
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• Posted on 2005-01-06
  Bloody good
  
  I'm a huge vampire fanatic. I love just about anything that involves vampires, including Anne Rice's vampire chronicles to the original "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi in the starring role. "Nadja" is more in the vein of the original "Dracula" in a sense that the film is shot in black and white and that there was minimal special effects. What is lacking in special effects, there is plenty of drama. I was pleasantly surprised that Peter Fonda was in this film. Elina Lowensohn gave me the creeps as Nadja, the vampire that Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) is hunting. At times I was annoyed by the oft distorted cinematography. I enjoyed the fact that there wasn't that typical dazzling special effects as seen in "Blade" and "Interview With the Vampire". It gets tiring seeing the storyline get passed over by special effects in vampire cinema. "Nadja" is a classic indie film.
  
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