After several weeks of anticipation and hearing various reports, I at last had the opportunity to sit down and watch Robert Egger’s Nosferatu, which was recently released for home streaming. I was surprised by the film in numerous respects, not the least of which was that I enjoyed it immensely and consider it to be a worthy remake, not in that it replaces the original (that would be impossible), but that it manages to capture in loving homage much of what is best about the 1922 film while also being a unique and compelling piece of filmmaking in its own right. I was also surprised by its themes; from the various things I had heard about the movie, I had expected it to be bleak and at least somewhat nihilistic. Yet what I found was a frequently moving narrative about light versus darkness, greed versus sacrifice, and the capacity of love to overcome death, all wrapped up in a horror film that eschews much of the stupidity and gore characteristic of the genre in modern times in order to embrace an older, gothic sense of creeping ill-ease punctuated by moments of intensity that (usually) refrain from gratuity.
What is most immediately striking about the film is the imagery. The cinematography is gorgeous, the shots masterfully composed, the effects subtly disorienting, and the locations perfectly suited to the gothic atmosphere. This is especially true of the first portion of the film, where Thomas travels to Castle Orlok, passing through fields of windmills, snowy mountains, a band of dancing peasants, and snow-strewn forests. One scene in particular, involving a carriage arriving almost silently by night at the crossroads of a wood, its horses fading in like mist and impossibly shifting position, is one of the most beautiful and unsettling moments I have seen in contemporary film. Though much of the rest of the film takes place withindoors, Eggers is no less apt in manipulating the light and shadow of interiors, frequently paired with a slight blur as the camera tracks, to create a sense of claustrophobia that still manages to be beautiful, and the way cameras move through tight spaces in long, meandering shots is mesmerizing, if also, appropriately, unnerving.
Eggers further succeeds at capturing so much of what is delightful in the original film—such as its over-the-top, frequently laughable villains (Herr Knock is so absurdly and obviously evil in the 1922 version it is positively side-splitting) and the creeping horror that it still has the power to evoke despite its age. Eggers achieves this, I think, in large part by not taking himself too seriously. Indeed, Nosferatu seems in many respects self-consciously campy. The villain is revamped in terrifying aspect while maintaining the air of a fallen, uptight aristocrat whose quirky hand postures creep across the walls in silhouette. What gore is present is done so cartoonish as to appear rather more silly than disgusting, with blood spurting in absurd quantities or only minimally realistic, child-sized ragdolls being tossed about by Orlok in the indistinguishable gloom. This is a good thing (though I for one might have preferred more subtlety in certain cases), for it avoids, with some minor exceptions, gratuity or nauseating realism. The dialogue, too, is frequently ridiculous (“I have seen things that would make Sir Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!”), though I fear this may have been largely unintentional, and this is one of the film’s weaker points.
When the film does take itself seriously, however, it largely succeeds in being sufficiently deep to warrant that seriousness, and the introduction of impressively though-provoking themes to an otherwise enjoyable horror flick is one of the most compelling (and riskiest) elements that, for my part at least, I believe Eggers pulls off. The story is of course one of evil—understood as plague, death, lust, or what have you—encroaching upon the good of love, friendship, and society, but the film avoids being simplistically black and white. Ellen has accidently tied herself to Orlok in a moment of loneliness, and their relationship is an abusive one, with the vampire forcefully tying Ellen to himself via sorcery, murder, and the manipulation of her sexuality. Despite this, Ellen resists admirably, in the end sacrificing herself to Orlok’s appetite in order to kill him and save those she loves (or at least those who are still alive). For my part, I cannot help but see this as a recapitulation of the Christ story, with Ellen uniting herself to death in order to destroy it. She is, moreover, repeatedly referred to as their “savior” and “redemption” by Von Franz.
If this had been all, however, I would not think such patterns terribly interesting; any number of movies utilize, consciously or unconsciously, variations of biblical narratives while remaining unwatchable. Eggers manages to make the narrative both complex and multifaceted, especially as regard the triangle between Thomas, Ellen, and Orlok. Lily-Rose Depp, with masterful contortions of body, portrays a woman torn between genuine love for a mostly hapless but good-hearted man and the sickness that is, entirely against her will, eating her from the inside and laying waste to the world around her. I found the love between her and Thomas genuinely moving, especially at the end, as Thomas holds her hand tenderly as she dies, entirely ignoring the vampiric corpse splayed on top of her. Thomas, too, displays nuance, for he is likewise caught between his love for Ellen and his desire for riches and success, leading him to unwittingly open the door to Orlok, who describes himself as nothing but “appetite,” a pure desire to consume.
Orlok himself is arguably the most interesting feature of the story, not so much because he is a complex character (I hesitate to even apply the word), as because of what he represents. There any any number of takes on how to understand Orlok: Is he the darkness in every human heart? Is he Death? Lust? Capitalism? He can be all or none of these things depending on how we choose to read the film, but he tells us point blank that he is appetite without love. The question is, then, Appetite for what? Apparently for the continuance of life at any cost, and yet also for Ellen, who does not offer him sustenance above what he may have elsewhere. Indeed, I found myself continually wondering just what it is that Ellen does offer him. Why does he desire her so much? We could simply say it is lust and leave it at that, but I think Nosferatu suggests something more interesting. For one thing, he is not interested in merely devouring her the way he may devour any person he encounters, but in entering into a kind of marriage with her, and one that she must consent to. He seems to desire not just to consume her, but to be bonded to her, to have, in some small, perverse way, a connection to humanity—even to love.
When he does finally come to take her, and she turns to undress and lay down before him on the bed, the camera focuses not on Ellen, but on Orlok, whose face does not display lust or vampiric hunger, but, shockingly, tenderness. Humanity flashes forth from him. Ellen is his weakness, the last tie he has to whatever remains of his soul. It is thus not surprising that he sees the sun rising and, despite knowing that it can only end him, willingly turns back to Ellen with only the slightest of prompts and dies on top of her. In the end, Ellen not only saves her husband and innumerable German townspeople; she also frees Orlok, who, it seems, consents to die, clinging to the last vestige of his humanity all the way to sunrise instead of fleeing when he could. This is the only freedom left to him, for it was his rejection of death, his consumptive need to go on living at the expense of others, that made him a monster.
We see, in the final shot, Ellen and Orlok lying together in bed, Thomas clutching her hand. The sheets are strewn with lilacs, and the monster that the count had been is reduced to a wizened corpse. The juxtaposition of fertility and beauty with the ugliness of death and decay is startling, yet stirringly beautiful; for the sun rises, and its golden light, for the first time in the movie, flows in, suggesting that though the final image of the film is death, it is life that is and shall be victorious.
Perhaps such messaging is cliche, and yet I find it to be so only in the most desirable sense, for it lends universality and light to what would otherwise be a relatively shallow—though visually stunning—horror film, and it rejects the pitfalls of nihilism that too frequently leave viewers on the point of despair. Eggers has done better; he has embraced the silliness and slow-burn terror of the 1922 film, and he has done so in a way that still allows for the triumph of love and light without trivializing either that success or the darkness it overcomes.
