Neil Jordan's best film since "The Good Thief", "Byzantium" stars Gemma Arterton as Clara Webb, a vampire with a teenage daughter, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan). Hundreds of years old, the duo live in the Byzantium, a coastal hotel.
Vampires are typically portrayed as carnal villains who prey upon unsuspecting humans. In "Byzantium", though, Eleanor is ashamed of who she is, represses her hunger for human blood and only "euthanizes" elderly men and women who desire death. Clara, meanwhile, only kills those who directly or indirectly threaten her daughter's life. Eleanor resents these murders. The film ends with Eleanor learning to appreciate Clara's struggles and sacrifices. Everything Clara does, Eleanor realises, has been borne of a mother's overwhelming love for her child.
Also odd for the genre is the sex of Jordan's heroes. Traditionally, vampires are lecherous males, overwhelmed by uncontrollable urges. In "Byzantium", though, it is Clara who is a rape victim and it is Clara whom men leer at and lust for. Elsewhere Clara's use of sex is purely pragmatic, and she seems to possess no other drives beyond a desire to protect her daughter from an overwhelmingly hostile and/or sexist world. Indeed, both our heroes are pursued by sexist vampires who believe that women should not be allowed into their weird, patriarchal, vampire cult.
Such genre subversions are typical of Jordan. Your typical Neil Jordan plot takes incredulous "fairy tales" and slams them into "gritty realism". Often the latter is revealed to be that which causes the need for the former's consoling fantasies. Jordan also delights in exposing the dark underbellies of what would otherwise be sanitised fairy tales, whilst simultaneously exposing the sappy, fantastical, fairy tale qualities lurking beneath his dark and supposedly gritty worlds. More specifically, Jordan finds the Gothic/fantasy tropes lurking in conventional crime/noir narratives, and finds the crime/noir tropes lurking in conventional Gothic/fantasy narratives. For Jordan, both spectra offer the same forms of Romanticism and Delusion. These obsessions permeate most of Jordan's work. As "Byzantium" was not written by Jordan, its director's themes are less prevalent than they usually are.
Few directors film Britiain and Ireland as well as Neil Jordan. "Byzantium" thus offers gorgeous cinematography, filled with deep blacks, intense reds, and pockets of shadow pierced by neon bulbs, heaving bosoms and murky yellows. This is a type of hyper-saturated atmosphere which Jordan has spent his career attempting to conjure up. Elsewhere the film resurrects motifs common in Jordan's filmography, "Byzantium" filled with sea-side resorts, cold beaches, prostitutes, street-urchins, love-struck boys, roving gangs, and men and women who pine romantically for modern damsels and knights. Fittingly, "Byzantium" contains a subplot in which characters question the veracity of an autobiography written by a vampire. Is it fantastical fiction, they wonder, or the coping mechanisms of an emotionally damaged, deranged young woman? For Jordan, of course, there rarely exist clear distinctions.
8.5/10 - Underrated. See Claire Denis' "Trouble Every Day".
Vampires are typically portrayed as carnal villains who prey upon unsuspecting humans. In "Byzantium", though, Eleanor is ashamed of who she is, represses her hunger for human blood and only "euthanizes" elderly men and women who desire death. Clara, meanwhile, only kills those who directly or indirectly threaten her daughter's life. Eleanor resents these murders. The film ends with Eleanor learning to appreciate Clara's struggles and sacrifices. Everything Clara does, Eleanor realises, has been borne of a mother's overwhelming love for her child.
Also odd for the genre is the sex of Jordan's heroes. Traditionally, vampires are lecherous males, overwhelmed by uncontrollable urges. In "Byzantium", though, it is Clara who is a rape victim and it is Clara whom men leer at and lust for. Elsewhere Clara's use of sex is purely pragmatic, and she seems to possess no other drives beyond a desire to protect her daughter from an overwhelmingly hostile and/or sexist world. Indeed, both our heroes are pursued by sexist vampires who believe that women should not be allowed into their weird, patriarchal, vampire cult.
Such genre subversions are typical of Jordan. Your typical Neil Jordan plot takes incredulous "fairy tales" and slams them into "gritty realism". Often the latter is revealed to be that which causes the need for the former's consoling fantasies. Jordan also delights in exposing the dark underbellies of what would otherwise be sanitised fairy tales, whilst simultaneously exposing the sappy, fantastical, fairy tale qualities lurking beneath his dark and supposedly gritty worlds. More specifically, Jordan finds the Gothic/fantasy tropes lurking in conventional crime/noir narratives, and finds the crime/noir tropes lurking in conventional Gothic/fantasy narratives. For Jordan, both spectra offer the same forms of Romanticism and Delusion. These obsessions permeate most of Jordan's work. As "Byzantium" was not written by Jordan, its director's themes are less prevalent than they usually are.
Few directors film Britiain and Ireland as well as Neil Jordan. "Byzantium" thus offers gorgeous cinematography, filled with deep blacks, intense reds, and pockets of shadow pierced by neon bulbs, heaving bosoms and murky yellows. This is a type of hyper-saturated atmosphere which Jordan has spent his career attempting to conjure up. Elsewhere the film resurrects motifs common in Jordan's filmography, "Byzantium" filled with sea-side resorts, cold beaches, prostitutes, street-urchins, love-struck boys, roving gangs, and men and women who pine romantically for modern damsels and knights. Fittingly, "Byzantium" contains a subplot in which characters question the veracity of an autobiography written by a vampire. Is it fantastical fiction, they wonder, or the coping mechanisms of an emotionally damaged, deranged young woman? For Jordan, of course, there rarely exist clear distinctions.
8.5/10 - Underrated. See Claire Denis' "Trouble Every Day".