Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Bad City may be an unchartered frontier, but it’s the perfect place to submerse yourself in at Halloween
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night | Official Trailer | Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour
In Iranian horror drama A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Ana Lily Amirpour takes a load of horrible things from our real world and puts them all together to see what happens. How is that any different from every other drama, or indeed, real life, you may ask? Well, the main character, ‘The Girl’, is a vampire.
The characters in the fantasy Bad City not only have a role in the neo-noir narrative but test our existing understanding of what role people like them play in society: The Prostitute, The Junkie, The Pimp, The Princess. Everything concerning these people is crushingly familiar. But The Girl (Sheila Vand) changes the trajectory of their fate by intervening, and it has a mixture of consequences.
As a character, The Girl is fascinating. From across the street, she has a featureless, ghoulish silhouette, which is accentuated by her black hijab - it’s a recurring visual when she is out at night in pursuit of evildoers. She has relatively few lines in the film but her physical presence (especially being a single woman outside at night time in a deserted city) and gaze alone speak volumes about how she is responding to different people and situations. We are completely compelled by her journey, her power and purpose in Bad City. She remains enigmatic throughout, but we gradually become more conscious of her motivations, or least of patterns in her vigilante behaviour.
Beyond The Girl’s taste for justice, she becomes very taken with Arash, the son of Hossein, The Junkie. The two bond when the repercussions of his dad’s addiction land with him and he becomes victim to Saeed’s (The Pimp) bullying, but despite his misfortune (and comparatively minor misdeeds) the two of them find solace in each other.
Everything in Bad City seems to be binary: people are either good or evil, and this is further enhanced by the black and white stylistic choice and its resulting strong shadows, which are more noticeably defined and a huge factor in achieving the atmospheric intensity throughout - think Kiss Me Deadly or Kubrick’s The Killing. However, a pivotal point occurs when The Girl and Arash go back to her place and subvert this theory. The chemistry between them - him dressed as Dracula, her (unbeknownst to him) a vampire - intensifies and there is beauty to be found in their unexpected romance and lingering restraint.
Amirpour’s team’s art direction is crucial in the world-building here: outside is lonely, cold and intimidating, but in The Girl’s own space it is warm, close and intimate. As White Lies’ ‘Death’ plays, which is just the most perfect of song choices for the film, the scene and the characters, the lyrics “Everything has got to be love or death” sing true and something other than evil permeates their space in this moment. Has The Girl vampire been tamed by a mere mortal man? They are both undeniably (and actually quite intimidatingly) cool in their own right, so their potential as a power couple is very promising.
The film’s soundtrack is used consistently as a storytelling device - even when instrumental or when the lyrics are sung in a different language - the tone and musicality of each track works to maximise the placement of the audience’s viewpoint within each scene, as well as referencing some of the genres that the film draws upon (epic spaghetti Western style twangs and horns from Federale’s ‘Sisyphus’, for example).
Visually, the film is striking, and not just because of the nostalgic monochromatic look. The architecture and external structures that are used to provide perspective and contrast against the characters in exterior shots are stunning, with symmetry and scale always carefully considered. Similarly, close up shots are composed with the same level of care, with a strong focus on the body language of characters, reminiscent of films from the golden era of Hollywood - and it’s definitely not a coincidence that Arash has a bit of the James Deans about him thanks to some timeless costume choices. One might even posit that the characters’ fate (after the cameras stop rolling) takes inspiration from the actor he so closely resembles.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a highly thoughtful and unconventional addition to the vampire sub-genre of horror. Yes, it is highly stylised and more strange than scary, but it is incredibly satisfying as a visual and auditory treat - Bad City may be an unchartered frontier, but it’s the perfect place to submerse yourself in at Halloween.
Verdict: An inspired feature debut which draws upon multiple genres to craft a unique, feminist cinematic experience. From the set design to the performances to the lighting, everything about it is quietly alluring. As previously mentioned in my other reviews, the addition of a skateboard to any film will almost certainly instantly win me over. This one is no different.
Overall? ⭐⭐️⭐⭐
Big screen appeal? 🎬🎬🎬
Accolade eligibility? 💡💡💡💡
Study-worthy? 📚📚📚📚📚
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is currently available to stream on STUDIOCANAL PRESENTS.