VividSimon Simply Perfect

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

worldsofdarkblue Set in an oil industry ghost town-like city in Iran, this movie, directed by newcomer Ana Lily Amirpour - an American of Iranian descent - is highly reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's early style. Interestingly, in an interview between her and legendary producer/director Roger Corman on the DVD extras, she claims she's not much of a fan of Jim Jarmusch. But as virtually everyone who studies film has pointed at the stylistic similarity, she is taking it as a compliment. Good idea, Ana.  Like Jarmusch's work, the movie is shot in atmospheric black and white - and it works beautifully. The dialogue is all Persian (Farsi) - even though the movie was shot in America, standing in for Iran - and is subsequently sub-titled. However, this does not work against the film (whose strength is its visuals) at all, as the dialogue is at all times minimal and slow, thus making the reading easy and unobstructive to the fascinating camera work.   So, it's a horror movie. It's principal character is a Persian woman vampire - who stalks the town, robed in a black chador, which is quite an unsettling shadow to behold standing 10 feet away from a potential victim late at night. The events exist within a kind of imagined Iranian underworld of pimps, hookers, drug dealers and street urchins. Our vampire watches this dark town, at times slowly riding a skateboard down the street! When she interactswith people, she is unblinking, mostly un-verbal, and seems to be at all times appraising their circumstances and their worth.  Aside from the beautiful blocking shots and photography, a high point of the filmis its use of sound effects, music (which sometimes references Morricone-like spaghetti westerns) and an impressive soundtrack of mostly modern pop music.   Any criticism of this movie (though it'smore praised than not) seems to center around it being "style over substance" and "too slowly paced". Well, it is moody, that's for sure - and maybe too slow for many of today's horror fans, that's true - but there's no arguing that its greatest strength is its style.   Using classic ratings, I give it 3 1/2 stars. Quite a different take in the vampire canon - I haven't enjoyed a vampire-themed movie this much since 2010's 'Let Me In'. Very impressive for a director's first feature.   Oh - and one more thing - there's a kitty cat in the movie - prominently, which tempts me to raise the rating to a full 4 stars.

Steven Wyatt Only cinema can do this. Only cinema can depict a Persian vampire- woman in a chador skateboarding down a lamplit street and make it work, can make it surreal and stunning and totally germane to the plot. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is full of such moments, full of gratuitous genius, black humour and cinematic magic.Filmed in monochrome, the minimalist dialogue in subtitled Farsi, the action takes place in 'Bad City', Bakersfield Ca. standing in for Iran. Our hero is Arash (Arash Marandi), a James Dean wannabe with a flash American car he explains took him 2,191 working days (exactly six years including one leap year) to buy. Arash dutifully cares for his ageing, heroin-addicted father, who owes money to a ferally abusive pimp and drug dealer played with evil gusto by Dominic Rains. The dealer takes Arash's treasured automobile in part payment of the father's drug debts. In a vast, bleak night space of almost Soviet immensity, Rains's character treats one of his prostitutes with laconic cruelty, abusing her and ejecting her from Arash's car. She sobs on the ground. Watching from a distance is a silent sentinel, nun-like in her chador, the Girl Who Walks Home Alone At Night.Named only as 'The Girl' in the credits, this is Sheila Vand's avenging dark angel. 'I have done bad things,' she tells Arash further down the story. 'I am bad.' She brings herself wordlessly to the pimp's attention, meeting his eyes with an impassive sadism reminiscent of Rooney Mara's character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. In his cocaine-fuelled hubris he takes her home. It does not end well for him.Arash, now travelling by bicycle, goes to his work as a gardener and handyman. 'Shaydah the Princess', the daughter of the house where he is working, is a flirtatious, spoiled little rich girl, chatting mindlessly on her cellphone and assessing the result of her rhinoplasty in the mirror. He spots her jewelled earrings on the dresser and gives way to temptation. He wants his car back. He takes the earrings to the pimp's house, arriving just as The Girl is leaving.Inside, he discovers the pimp's mutilated, blood-drained body. On the coffee table is a briefcase stuffed with cash and drugs. He empties it, takes his car keys, and flees.One more scene remains to round off the film's characterisations. The Girl confronts a skateboarding boy, repeatedly demanding -- her face twisted with passion and menace -- 'Are you a good boy? Are you?' She will be watching him, she threatens; she will rip out his eyes and feed them to the dogs if he transgresses. The terrified boy runs away, leaving his skateboard.Arash, driving his reclaimed and beloved car, arrives at a costume party dressed as Count Dracula, his pockets stuffed with the pimp's drugs and cash. Shaydah is there with her friend the 'Skeleton Party Girl', actually a cameo role played by the film's writer and director Ana Lily Amirpour. Drugs are taken. Arash, rejected by Shaydah, finds himself in the street, tripping, lost in Bad City. He is staring at a street lamp, entranced by the light, when The Girl comes skateboarding past.If all stories are ultimately about the search for love, here is the central dynamic of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Under the street light is Arash, the holy innocent, dressed up for a party as the vampire Dracula. Into his life comes The Girl, a genuine vampire killer, on a skateboard. Light Angel and Dark Angel are brought together in a bizarre, comic coincidence. How will this play out?No backstory is given for The Girl, no explanation of how she became who and what she is. We are left to assume that it is something primally dark. Yet something in the character of Arash touches her, something that softens her hard and murderous heart. And something in her draws Arash. Their instinctive, developing symbiosis is brilliantly symbolised by a scene in which he pierces her ears with a safety pin in order to present her with the diamond earrings he stole from Shaydah. She accepts the pain, she accepts the jewels, she accepts the proffered love. The vampire-woman is not tamed -- you can never see that happening -- but she is shown a new and different life beyond the blighted, heartless wasteland of Bad City.Amirpour has created a masterpiece of atmosphere and vision, aided and underpinned by an eclectic soundtrack of mingled Western and Persian pop. The backdrop is nominally Iran, actually California, a setting which in itself produces an austere, strangely familiar Everyplace -- the landscape of the lost soul -- where cruelty, selfishness and existential absurdity besiege from all quarters the simple human longing for Love. There are recurring moments of crazy beauty. The editing could have been a little tighter, which is why I give A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night nine stars instead of a faultless 10. But that is a quibble; every character, every performance, burns into the memory. Amirpour's writing and directing creates a world where the outlandish becomes more real than the superficial 'reality' we inhabit in our daily lives. Once again, only cinema can do this. Breathtaking.

tenshi_ippikiookami "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" is an interesting movie. More a curiosity at moments than a movie with a body and a plot, it ends being saved by its atmosphere and the cinematography, even if some of its moments fall into the silly.A vampire is roaming an Iranian town. She goes around killing 'bad' men, talking with people and just being very, very shy. She becomes friends with a young guy. Will she end up killing him?Who are we kidding. The movie doesn't really care about vampires or anything. On the other hand, it has a very nice atmosphere and some of its aspects, like the music or the bleak black and white, give it an atmosphere close to a Western. The camera-work is good, and the direction acceptable enough. There are a couple of scenes really good. The acting, however, is a little bit stilted and, in a couple of occasions, just too silly. The vampire's movements are hilarious (not sure if on purpose)."A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" ends being a movie that will be enjoyed more by people who like their movies about atmosphere and 'messages'. Just forget about plot and pace.

CinemaClown A calm, alluring & subversive art-house endeavour from Ana Lily Amirpour in what's her feature film debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is as impressive as it is unconventional, as beautiful as it is brooding, and as hypnotic as it is haunting. Touted as "the first Iranian vampire western", it is a fascinating blend of horror, romance & western that's original, meditative & masterly composed.Set in an Iranian ghost-town that reeks of death & loneliness, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night tells the story of a lonesome vampire that wanders the desolate streets at night; stalking, killing or protecting whoever she deems fit. But things change when she comes across a guy who's just as lost as her and, in an effort to connect with each other, something beautiful is born between the two.Written & directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is crafted with stunning restraint & presents the up-n-coming filmmaker in absolute control of her craft. Lily Amirpour's direction exudes both patience & confidence as she spins her own take on the vampire folklore with this twisted fable of two lost souls without giving in to genre conventions, and isn't afraid to employ silence as a powerful & effective tool.For a debut feature, it is an incredibly sophisticated effort, and Lily Amirpour not only exhibits her firm grip on storytelling elements but all filmmaking aspects. The story takes place in Bad City, an Iranian town in the middle of nowhere, and the deserted locations, vacant streets & fraction of denizens add to its graveyard like aura while the resurfacing shots of drilling pumps perpetually sucking oil out of Earth serves as an interesting companion to its vampiric themes.The script is only concerned with the doings of two characters, Arash & The Girl, and the rest of the town's inhabitants are discerned by simple tags assigned to them. What's also admirable is that it is never in a hurry to switch to the next moment and actually embraces the silence & emptiness that permeates every frame, which in turn contributes to its somber tone & funereal gloominess. But there are also times when its extended takes bring the narrative to a standstill.Shot in crisp black-n-white, Cinematography brings an elusive quality to the whole picture with its static camera-work, skillful use of slow-mo technique & beautifully composed shots, and further intensifies its otherworldly setting. Another one of my favourite aspects is its mesmerising soundtrack, comprising of sensibly chosen tracks that are evocative and always in check with the emotional requirements of any given moment.Coming to the performances, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night features a committed cast in Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Mozhan Marnò, Marshall Manesh, Dominic Rains & Rome Shadanloo, and each one of them get sufficient time on screen. Vand's subtle expressions & unwavering gaze turns her silent showcase into the most impressive performance in the movie and she is brilliantly supported by the rest of the cast, each playing their part with utmost conviction.On an overall scale, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a somber effort that's elegiac in its approach, dreamlike in its presentation, and subdued in its addressing of topical themes. Crafted with care & intimacy, it promises an etherial, absorbing & aesthetically fulfilling experience to those willing to embrace its slow-burn narrative and marks a promising start to Ana Lily Amirpour's filmmaking career. Although its fangs aren't as deeply embedded as I would have liked, this thoughtful meditation on loneliness is still a delightful discovery that's worthy of a broader audience.