Vampyr (1932)

 "She must die..."

This is an odd film. It was made in 1932, some years into the sound era. It has music and sound effects, and even some dialogue. Yet it has the grammar of a silent film, which is most odd. It is visually a masterpiece, as one might expect of Carl Theodor Dreyer, yet its visual excellence is that of a silent film. 

It hints at Expressionism in several shots, while not really being an Expressionist film. It is most certainly European rather than Hollywood in feel. It is extraordinary to think that this little artistic throwback is a contemporary of the Universal horror films: it feels utterly unlike them.

I feel bad saying this of a film with such visual excellence, and which generates such an atmosphere... but it feels like style (and the style is truly very good indeed) over substance. The film is short, but feels interminably slow, and I say this as someone who is very much used to slo pacing and, indeed, the grammar of silent cinema. The acting is, well, irrelevant, as the camera tells the story while the cast is asked to do very little. This is a film that very much relies on ots dreamy visuals, and makes no concessions to the audience in terms of follwing the plot.

But there's no subtext beyond the usuall generic sexuality found intrinsically in the vampire as subject matter. This is an artistic film with no real artistic point to make and, given what it is, it can hardly fall back on populism. It's a gloriously made dud, perhaps, but nevertheless a dud.