Jeremy’s verdict:
Desolate landscapes filled with oil-drilling machines, empty streets, and open graves populate an Iranian town in A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, leaving no question that this place and its inhabitants are not welcoming to some, and actively hostile to others. One of our protagonists, Arash (Arash Marandi), knows this too well. His father, Hossein (Marshall Manesh), is addicted to heroin and deep in debt. Arash works as a gardener and handyman for a wealthy family, paying the bills and looking after Hossein, while they live together in small quarters with little privacy. The divide between the haves and have nots is stark. Elsewhere, when she’s not playing records in her bedroom, the Girl (Sheila Vand) wanders – and sometimes skateboards – along the streets at night. Fear doesn’t strike into her in the same way it does others, and there’s a good reason: she’s a dracula vampire. It’s when Arash crosses paths with the Girl in this small town that their stories begin to intertwine.
The production on this film shows the talent and passion of the people behind it. The use of black-and-white is moody, expressive, and almost abstract, and the lenses cinematographer Lyle Vincent chose to employ give the film a hazy, ethereal aesthetic that’s soft on its focus and not at all ‘sharp’ in the ways we often expect films to be. These lenses also distort perspective and curve the horizontal lines of the frame, most obviously when straight street curbs take on an eerie fishbowl bend. The framing of much of the film is precise and deliberate to great effect, with claustrophobic shots through the tiny round windows of cars, and tracking shots showing the Girl following various individuals along empty streets. The costume design and make-up on supporting characters, like Saeed (Dominic Rains), is three-dimensional and vibrant, and the sound design and scoring play a big part in the film, filling in gaps, spaces, and movement with meaning and most importantly – trumpets. Detail, visual ambience, and the characterisation of the world itself has been crafted with care.
Marandi and Vand’s performances are at times tender, at times energetic, but always heartfelt – they emotionally co-create connection, tension, and feeling with their movement, dialogue, and glances. Throughout the film we get tastes of horror, with one of the most frightening scenes being the least violent, but also short bursts of unexpected comedy. And as the Girl’s motivations become clearer, we begin to see the human values she tries to embody – albeit violently, and in one case, strangely inconsistently.
If my low threshold for horror-film tolerance is anything to go by, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is unlikely to jump-scare you out of your seat or give you nightmares. But it is a worthy contender for a horror film this Halloween – doing something different, with character. And if all this hasn’t sold you, Arash’s cat, Masuka, is a gorgeous addition to the film – clearly well-fed, well-loved, and a well-behaved joy to watch.
4/5 Stolen earrings 💎💎
Lauren’s verdict:
On the dark streets of a desolate and impoverished town in Iran a young woman stalks and kills abusive men.
Arash (Arash Marandi) finds no comfort at home with his drug-addicted father Hussein (Marshall Manesh), working to create a better life for himself. In Bad City, oil pumps churn and factories spew fumes, the streets are quiet as workers roll bodies into a pit filled with the dead. At night, a sole vampire, only known to us as “The Girl” (Sheila Vand) haunts the streets of Bad City, alone and listless.
When Arash and The Girl meet after a Halloween party, they instantly feel a connection and an unspoken trust. The first night they spend together thrums with tension, and the lines begin to blur between romance and threat.
Director Ana Lily Amirpour is artful in her staging, the genuine connection between Arash and The Girl is only accentuated by the backdrop of Bad City, a place where real human connection and hope seemed to have vanished completely. In this film, the vampire – a creature often more associated with violence and death – is indeed the spark that gives this film life. In one scene, The Girl coasts down main street on a stolen skateboard, chador flowing in the wind behind her. Even in the wake of its oddity, it’s a captivating scene that radiates pure fearlessness.
I’ve never been the type to be first in line for an art-house film, but something about A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night really seized me.
Amirpour chose not to burden this film with backstory, instead we know very little of how The Girl became a vampire, or where she came from. While most Horror films pride themselves on reciting endless chapters of lore, Amirpour instead chooses to use silence as essential dialogue.
Even in the most pivotal scenes, silence is key, allowing us to explore each feeling so deeply we begin to feel it ourselves.
While A Girl Walks isn’t without its share of violence and malice, Amirpour manages to create a new kind of gentle love story within the suffocating atmosphere of an apathetic world.
4/5 Stolen earrings 💎💎
Hot Bloods Writing Club 