Greetings gentle readers and welcome to Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a surreal take on the vampire tale, Vampira, accompanied by a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
and next week’s films:
Howling for God
Ya zamene ahu
Reviews of Vampira:
Letterboxed says
Can it be right to think of vampires as a sort of debased human, impure and parasitic in their feeding, possessed of a cold and sterile sexuality? It is so like us to believe that everything in the world is a reflection of our own small lives in one way or another. In truth the vampire may live in light and glide through a perpetual dreamworld, having as much to do with humans as the gods of Greek mythology did the strange and helpless mortals. The film is a series of vignettes, or forays into the vampiress’s existence, interspersed with footage of a false intellectual reading excerpts from various books supposedly on the subject. But the images which follow his words give the lie to these attempts at framing something which is not debased, but truly other.
and
Rare German arthouse film about vampires, narrated intermittently by a man amongst books. The segments are surreal, dreamlike, and accompanied by soothing yet foreboding soundscapes. Feels very rustic until the bloke jumped on a motorcycle, anachronistically giving the director tons of street credit.
and
“Beauty knows neither morality nor politics, neither good nor evil and no justice. Everything becomes valuable and desirable in a beautiful shell. And the vampires know that. Beauty is their most dangerous weapon and their greatest protection.”
Without a doubt one of the most interesting, entrancing, and alluring film experiences I’ve had. These are probably the best long takes I’ve ever seen. Definitely some of the most inventive camerawork ever. The costumes. The sets. The makeup. Everything is so perfect. One of the most visually stunning films I’ve watched. If I could choose one film to get a 4K restoration I wouldn’t hesitate to choose this one. One of those movies that make you feel like it was made just for you.
My take (Spoilers!):
This is a really beautiful film; the production value is moderate but it’s very compelling for a made-for-TV movie. The lead actress Grischa Huber is stunning as Vampira. The scenes are wonderfully strange and have an iconic quality about them. Weirdness abounds. Magic rituals, gunfights trapped in time loops, demonic love. The Tangerine Dream soundtrack is deliciously morbid.
There is a compelling use of light and a playful use of time. Costumes from the 19th century mingle with references to Janis Joplin and motorcycle scenes. You are definitely unsure what the timeline is supposed to be but that’s a great thing. And between each chapter a brief narrative from a vampire scholar adds a layer of “authenticity” to the whole affair. I’m awarding it ⭐⭐, worth watching again.
Director: George Moorse
Actors: Grischa Huber, Louis Waldon, Del Negro, Manfred Jester, Ceci Perrin, Michael Gordon
Plot (Spoilers!):
The movie is divided into six chapters with a narrated segment in between them. The overarching plotline is the journey of Vampira, who appears to be an amalgam of sorceress, divine avatar, and vampire. This is a week in her un-life and the lives of her cohort of occult colleagues.
Chapter 1: Vampira and the surveyor.
Chapter 2: Vampira celebrates the ritual.
Chapter 3: The priest and the lady.
Chapter 4: The eternal gun fight.
Chapter 5: Vampira’s demon lover.
Chapter 6: Vampira and the doctor.
More information here:
Bonus!:
Vampira soundtrack by Tangerine Dream
Perdóname, Is there a link for the film?
Here it is (enable closed captioning for English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjIiiTomOSE
It’s at the top of the page, just select the box that says Vampira.
Thanks, that was amazing!
As I watched it I kept wondering, how it was filmed? It just seemed impossible that it could be filmed.
It was so surreal and yet it had to be really real because it was beyond what could have possibly been filmed!!! It felt like some other form of communication: as in mind-to-mind.
Perhaps a strange rhyming of watching an AI generated film?: so unreal that it must be real, as in not film!!
A real mind bender, thanks again for the introduction.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Fun arthouse content. Reminds us of what true ‘avant-garde’ work is. Not pandering to the lowest common denominator, it makes you work at it.
The Tangerine Dream score is in the style of their early work, like Phaedra or Rubycon. Atmospheric.
Just right for these fraught times.
To me it sounds more like the Ohr-period TD (Zeit, Atem, etc.) than the Virgin-period TD.
Thanks for this, semper. I’ve been a TD fan since an early teen and still dig it. I didn’t know anything about this recording. Sorry I didn’t get to it yesterday.
Yes, very good. It was 1971, and I have no doubt that many of the artists involved in this film were tripping on acid before, during, and after. I would have enjoyed it in that state, thank you very much.
Vampira so beautiful, so scary! What a face, and hands. Notice the actors hands all through.
Primitive post production film effects I think? The white backgrounds, and possibly some of the flashing highlights. Note there is no dialog or sync sound except for the gunshot, or gunshots? I lost track at that point, was lost in the visuals.
Soundtrack by Tangerine Dream is so subdued. By the end it gets more active.
I like films that feel like dreams and this one fits the bill and then some.
Thanks sl, you have great taste.