After last week’s hijacking of the column in favor of hanging out with some old friends I knew this week I could have no excuse for not writing a review on Vampyr. Sure the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival opened this week but that wouldn’t get in my way. Yes, the multiplexes actually had a small handful of potentially decent movies for me to watch but that couldn’t possibly get in my way. And sure, I had a screening of the uncut version of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly that I simply had to go to and Manda Bala burning up my Netflix queue but those were mere distractions while I prepared myself for Vampyr. Awesome distractions to be sure but they shouldn’t do anything more then slow me down. Then Ben Folds had to go and muck up my whole plans.

You see my girlfriend bought tickets to go see Ben Folds in concert this past Saturday night but somewhere along the way both of us, along with a friend of ours, somehow mistook the concert venue of St. Peter, Minnesota for St. Paul, Minnesota. We didn’t really think much of it at first, but once we MapQuested it we saw the error of our ways. See St. Peter, Minnesota was over an hour south of the Twin Cities. Needless to say this had a rather large effect on our plans.

Calls were made, schedules revised and gas tanks were filled. Now rather then a mere hop, skip and a jump across the river we were off on a road trip. (Ed. Note – Road trip! Whoo!) We headed north to a local cafe to pickup some road drinks (mocha, presumably some sort of soy based chai contraption and a root beer) and some food before we doubled back and headed south towards that Lutheran Midwestern Mecca Gustavus Adolphus College. Yup, Ben Folds was playing at a Lutheran college campus. Why? I have no idea, but their were some whispered concerns about whether or not he would be allowed to swear at the show.

Thankfully we made some killer time thanks to our awesome driver who shall remain nameless (Hint: he’s me) and we made it to St. Peter in just under an hour. We parked our car amongst a herd of socially repressed Lutheran’s and headed in to what we initially thought was a concert hall. Turns out is was some sort of rec center that housed not only their pool, but an indoor lacrosse field. So there we stood, surrounded by post-pubescent children on an Astroturf covered gymnasium waiting for Ben to arrive. Unfortunately our wait would stretch to nearly an hour, as the opening act butchered song after song to the roar of the adoring crowd. (Ed. Note – Evidently Lutherans have horrible taste in music) When that new and altogether evil form of torture finally ended we were graced with Ben’s presence.

In an interesting turn of events Ben brought a backing band and proceeded to rock out for two hours with a set that could possibly be described as cursetastic, turning the Lutherans into Jumping Jesuits before our vary eyes. It was a fascinating sight to be sure. And as the clock struck 11 o’clock we headed back to our car knowing in just over an hour we’d be back in The Cities, safely hidden from the religious hordes of St. Peter. Of course their was the slight problem of what to do about Vampyr. I did have a review to write after all and the concert had turned from a supposed 3 hour excursion into a half-day affair. But then, after last week’s fiasco, I had made sure to watch the movie before I went out on the town.

It is always a bit of a culture shock when you watch a movie from a generation before you even were born. There are just so many differences from acting styles to even makeup work that it can take a few minutes before you get back into the feel of films from that era. Vampyr posed a particularly unique adaptation on my part as it was one of the earliest “talkies” and thus was a bit uneven in its use of any spoken dialogue or sound effects. It is also interesting how the placards for the subtitles are used, as they dominate the screen and often times cover up most of the physical image of the film.

But it doesn’t take long for Vampyr to show why it is now such a highly regarded film when a solitary boatman stands upon a dock and rings the bell marking the arrival of the gondola. Utterly encased in a thick fog the man holds a giant scythe, clearly alluding to the ferryman Charon who brought souls across the river Styx into the depths of Hades and thus letting the viewer know they were about to pass into Hell themselves.

From their Vampyr’s visuals quickly proceed to nothing short of jaw droppingly stunning, my particular favorite being the shadows that are living separate lives from their living counterparts, though the later dream sequence was an impressive achievement in its own right. Today such visuals would be quickly written off due to the fairly obvious techniques known to even the most novice film watcher, but how director Carl Theodor Dreyer pulled off these cinematic marvels is simply beyond my grasp. It’s quite clear that Vampyr had the same eye opening effect on others, as the use of shadows and fog throughout the film would eventually become ingrained into the classic noir films of a few years later.

But my biggest complaint of Vampyr is something it really can’t be blamed for. When the film was initially shown to audiences it was marked as a colossal failure and Dreyer entered a deep depression and didn’t film another movie until ten years later. Distributors, unsatisfied with the original product, proceeded to have the film cut up and resequenced so it would have a more fitting narrative for audiences to watch. This, quite obviously, resulted in badly mistreated prints floating around the world for people to watch, so when it was time for the film to be transferred to DVD their was little to work with.

The transfer is absolutely horrible, scratchy and burned, with the reel queues still intact on the DVD. A film as visually impressive as this deserves far better treatment, and unfortunately, their hasn’t been much in the way of repairing and remastering this movie. I had the pleasure of receiving a copy of the newest release of Nosferatu this past Christmas, and I had a hard time not comparing the two films during my screening of Vampyr. While both are visually stunning and are remarkable effective and efficient at creating a sense of dread and wonder for the viewer, it is difficult for me to pick the better film of the two, as the print of Nosferatu has clearly received far greater care up to this point in time. Thankfully, the Criterion Collection recently announced they will be releasing Vampyr, and there is no doubt in my mind, even sight unseen, that it will be a must buy for any film fan.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Features, Movies, Reviews, Where the Long Tail Ends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.