In the Dark Reviews

The winter holidays brought with them two cinematic takes on a couple of classics of 20th century pop culture, Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu" and James Mangold's "A Complete Unknown." I found both to be solidly good, even as they felt tantalizingly close, yet just out of reach, of being truly great.

In some ways, it's my fault for not being as thrilled by Eggers' "Nosferatu" as I was by his work on "The Northman" in 2022. I hadn't studied the legend of Amleth, which inspired Shakespeare's "Hamlet," whereas I was already a huge fan of F.W. Murnau and Werner Herzog's earlier "Nosferatu" films.

Eggers cleaves closer to Murnau's original 1922 film, which treated its version of Dracula (whom both Eggers and Murnau rename Count Orlok) as a creature borne of sinister occult rituals, rather than falling into the more familiar tropes of vampire lore that subsequent movie versions of Dracula have helped formalize within the media's collective consciousness.

Like the Dracula of Bram Stoker's novel, Bill Skarsgård's Orlok sports a mustache, which might seem like a trivial detail, but when combined with his thick fur coat and hat, and his regionally and historically authentic dialect, marks his character as distinctly Slavic, making more explicit how a number of vampire legends were tied into fears of the foreign "other."

Trigger warning: Eggers also highlights this innate xenophobia by not only identifying the superstitious villagers specifically as Romani, but also having other characters refer to them by their most well-known ethnic slur.

As with "The Northman," Eggers cares more about accurately portraying the cultures of the past, right down to their antiquated prejudices and unsympathetic values, than about making them easier for modern audiences to empathize with. That decision accounts for the dichotomy of how "Nosferatu" treats Orlok's predatory courtship of the melancholy Ellen, played by Lily-Rose Depp.

Myths of vampires and incubi are not especially subtle about warning against the power of women's sexual desires, but rather than condemning Ellen for her dark yearnings, "Nosferatu" attributes them to how deeply her need for emotional intimacy is unmet by the repressive patriarchal society of her era.

Indeed, while Stoker's "Dracula" contrasted Mina's virtue with the more wanton nature of her friend Lucy, Eggers' "Nosferatu" makes Ellen's friend Anna (played by Emma Corrin) the definition of a dutiful wife, only to show that this offers her no salvation.

The greatest strength of Eggers' "Nosferatu" is also what makes it most predictable for those who have seen Murnau and Herzog's takes on the same tale. In all three films, it is our ostensible damsel in distress who saves everyone else, through her supposed weakness.

Eggers continues to deliver exemplary visuals and atmosphere with "Nosferatu," employing deft shadow-play to frightening effect, and diffusing the lighting in certain scenes to the point that I could practically smell the stink of the oil lamps and fireplaces illuminating the drafty cabins and castles of the Carpathian countryside.

Moving from Germany in 1838 to America between 1961-65, "A Complete Unknown" benefits tremendously from Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro's uncanny ability to emulate the vocal performances of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, even as I've heard more than one viewer ironically critique Barbaro's singing as slightly "too pretty" to match that of Baez.

I'm nearly 50 years old, so I'm just barely old enough to remember, way back in my youth, a few disgruntled oldsters still grumbling about the alleged "betrayal" of Dylan going electric.

But what's most notable about the narrative behind "A Complete Unknown" is that, while it follows the well-trodden arc of an emerging celebrity forgetting his roots, and abandoning those who contributed to his stardom in the first place, it nonetheless makes a persuasive case that Dylan was right to cast aside the likes of Pete Seeger, even if he might have been doing so for the wrong reasons.

The contradiction of the folk music community's rejection of Dylan's embrace of more rock 'n' roll stylings is that the ethos of folk music is grounded in a sincere commitment to progressive ideals, but their reflexive disgust with Dylan's electric guitar was the opposite of progressive or forward-thinking.

Ed Norton practically disappears into his portrayal of Pete Seeger, in a good way, while Boyd Holbrook continues his streak of scene-stealing supporting roles as an endearingly gregarious Johnny Cash, but I felt badly for the talented actresses whose roles Mangold circumscribed to mere relationship drama.

Mangold repeatedly shows Seeger's wife Toshi quietly hovering in the background, without giving her anything to do, enough that I wondered why, until I read Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Merrill Markoe's review, pointing out that Toshi Seeger produced and directed the "Rainbow Quest" TV show, and helped set up the Newport Folk Festival.

"A Complete Unknown" shows how both of those venues helped build Dylan's fame, and yet, Mangold couldn't even throw in a line of dialogue explaining why Toshi Seeger was in the room, just as he reduced Dylan's girlfriend at the time (played by Elle Fanning) to the woman he was cheating on with Baez, even though Dylan himself acknowledged his girlfriend's strong artistic influence on the music he was making back then.

Mangold had the opportunity to give us compelling character arcs that would have gone beyond the mere template of a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode, and he blew it, but even so, the rest of "A Complete Unknown" remains watchable.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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