Movie Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, artsy movies, Farsi, female vampires, feminism, feminist, film reviews, films, indie films, indie flicks, Iran, Iranian, movie review, movie reviews, movies, vampire movies, vampires

In recent weeks, I viewed the art house film, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”. In case you haven’t heard of it, this Ana Lily Amirpour directed movie received a lot of buzz for being a Farsi-language (which is the main tongue of Iran) art house flick about a vampire in a Western-style city. In fact, the movie’s tagline is “The first Iranian Vampire Western”.

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Even though the film is done in Farsi, it was not shot in Iran. Instead, it was made here in the United States by a cast and crew of Iranian heritage. That is quite obvious when you see the sex scenes and female nudity. I mean, this is not a movie that the Ayatollah would approve of!

“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is about a fictional place called Bad City. And bad is the best word to describe it. Drug dealing, spousal abuse, prostitution, and just general unhappiness and misery all around. Having the film shot in black and white seems to add to the sadness of Bad City, along with the artsy intentions of the director.

But while the residents of Bad City are dealing with their unhappiness, they seem unaware of a particular young woman who is by herself at night. They might notice her, because this is supposed to be Iran, and in that country, a young woman being by herself at that hour is taboo. She may be up to no good. And this girl is. She’s a vampire.

But she’s no evil vampire. Instead, the young woman seems to use her thirst for blood as a way to punish those in Bad City who hurt others. She kills and drinks from the drug dealers, the pimps and all others who abuse women. Come to think of it, this characterization of a female vampire seems to be a trend with the genre. The film, Byzantium, had something similar. And one of my author buddies, Francis Franklin, wrote a book that had the same idea. It’s like female vampires are the new female warriors against male oppression, and other injustices from patriarchal societies.

At the center of “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is Arash, a young man who’s father shoots up heroin, owes money and abuses his girlfriend. The vampire watches this very closely, and it is while she’s watching that Arash meets her and falls in love. She becomes a beacon of light for him in his unhappy existence in an unhappy place. This is rather unusual yet touching vampire romance, although the love story is a secondary storyline here. Arash is basically a rebel in Bad City in a sense that he yearns to escape its misery and live a better life.

Overall, the film is about how rough Bad City is and how this vampire (who has no name) uses her vampire ways to bring justice. It’s an artsy, indie flick that brings together Iranian social issues, vampire fascination, and classic American flicks about teenage rebellion. It doesn’t have a driving storyline, but it is interesting to watch. The real catch is the Iranian aspect of the film, which why it received such a buzz among indie flicks recently. For one thing, I liked how the vampire’s chador seems to represent both Iran’s strict clothing laws for women, and the capes traditional vampires wear. It’s actually a cool combination when you think about it.

I recommend this film if you like foreign language flicks, indie art-house style films, and a feminist take on female vampires. If you love cinematography, you’d love this film. But if you are looking for a driving storyline with intense climaxes and drama, you won’t see too much of that here. But it is something different from many vampire and Iranian films out there, so this may be a movie worth watching for you!

 

 

Book Review: Suzie & the Monsters – A Fairytale of Blood, Sex and Inhumanity

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books, eBooks, female vampires, human trafficking, lesbian, lesbian love, lesbian sex, lesbian vampires, literature, misogyny, novels, vampires

Vampire novels these days seem to be very similar. Many of them involved a woman falling love – or lust – with an alpha male vampire. Sometimes the female protagonist can be a kick-ass, superwoman type, while other times her life revolves the man she is focused on.

Well, how about a vampire book that is almost entirely different from all the others out there? As in, where the men aren’t the heroes and women can be someone’s cup of tea?

British author Francis James Franklin likes to explore a vampire’s struggle between it’s monstrous nature and the humanity of it’s previous life. He also likes to explore female sexuality, especially in the realm of lesbianism.

Before you jump for joy or get enraged over more lesbian chic, I say relax. Taking a look at Franklin’s blog shows he is not exactly a Howard Stern-like drooling over girl-on-girl action. He admits that women’s sexuality can be powerfully dangerous and erotic. Too bad patriarchal oppression kept down powerful women for many centuries, and it looks like he explored how that can affect a woman in his self-published eBook, Suzie and the Monsters: A Fairytale of Blood, Sex and Inhumanity. He also brings his exploration of a vampire trying to remain human while being something inhuman to this book.

What drew me to this book were the reviews on Goodreads. I saw that the ratings were low for Suzie and I wondered why because Franklin seems to analyze issues pretty well. When I checked them out, there were many complaints of the explicit sex in this book. Many felt the scenes were far too graphic, and there were other complaints about the POV and the unconventional plot. But some described the main character, Suzie Kew (yes, that is her name), as a strong woman in charge of her life, yet mildly self-hating because of her vampirism. Intrigued, I decided to check out the book myself.

First off, yes, there is a lot of sex in this book. A lot! But I can attest that this is not erotica, like some have said. Erotica is when there is more sex than plot, and the sex goes on for pages or paragraphs in a very graphic manner. Most of the time, the sex here is just matter-of-fact. But there are scenes that make me uncomfortable, particularly one that happens in the very first few pages where Suzie rapes a girl in a club bathroom stall. Yeah, not exactly a protagonist to root for and I was very disturbed by that.

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However, I admit I was interested in learning more about Suzie, who she was and where she came from. She didn’t seem psychopathic nor was she an angel. There was also the promise of what she did for a living that hinted a plot. When Suzie is not out clubbing, seducing women left and right, working as a pole dancer at a classy strip club, and obsessing over high fashion and the aroma of coffee, she assists a private investigator in tracking down missing girls.

Although there wasn’t much of a plot with that detective part – it was more like a side story the way it was written – it does offer a chance to get to know Suzie. With that, it becomes clear that this book is not a typical plot driven one, but a character study, and a statement on female sexuality and how women have suffered as second class citizens for centuries. As a woman who cares about women’s issues myself, I found it intriguing that a man will take on this feminist slant very well.

Throughout the book we learn about why Suzie is vicious and how she struggles with that. She has very good reasons to want to destroy all the monsters in the world (translation: men who brutally abuse women) but yet, she knows being driven by hate and vengeance makes her a monster, too. “And who would love me then?” she asks at the very last line of the story. Such is the conflict she’s been dealing with for 500 years.

At the heart of this story is Suzie’s blossoming relationship with Cleo, an 18 year girl finishing up school whom she met right after raping that girl in the bathroom stall (BTW: that girl pops up again later on, and we learn why exactly Suzie did what she did. Not to condone her actions at all, but it was not just sexual domination that drove our protagonist). It doesn’t take long for Suzie to fall madly in love with the naive but bright, young but strong, innocent but fearless Cleo. Cleo herself falls in love and leaves all that she has behind to follow the vampire she sees as a goddess. Along the way, there is plenty of blood drinking, both from the guys who kind of deserve it and those who do not. Oh yeah, lots of sex. But hey, that’s what two people do when they first fall in love, regardless of orientation.

I was enjoying this story very much until about two-thirds along the way. I really got into Suzie working for the private investigation in tracking down missing girls, and discovering a human trafficking scheme involving young women from Eastern Europe being forced to work as prostitutes in London. This is an issue I personally care about because it is horrifying that human trafficking is still being done, and the way the women are treated makes me both mad and sad. For those of you who’ve read my book, The Dark Proposal, you may recall there were brief moments where victims of human trafficking were depicted, but for very different reasons compared to Franklin’s book.

Anyway, I was enjoying this and hoping Suzie would emerge victorious in the end. But then there’s a part where she talks at great length about her history. I felt her doing so took away the momentum of the story, because it was gearing up for a big event, and I actually got bored reading about it. I know it was to help the reader understand where she was coming from and what drives her. But it turned the excitement down several notches.

By the end of the novel, I felt this was about a woman fighting for women’s freedom from brutal men who just so happened to be a vampire rather than vice versa. It is clear Suzie’s vampire status is second to that of her fighting for women’s freedom from brutal men, and that is definitely a different take on vampires in fiction. Unfortunately, it may confuse other readers on what to make out of Suzie. Is she a vampire? A sex-crazed lesbian? Or a woman who has dealt with and seen too many women suffer from patriarchy that she makes it her mission to get justice however she can?

Obviously, Suzie Kew cannot be put into a box and that is something not too many authors do with their main characters. Yeah, some may have villains with an apparent sweet side, but this protagonist cannot be pigeon-holed at all. Be prepared if you choose to read it so confusion won’t set in.

Overall, I liked Franklin’s writing style, how he structured his book (the chapters are not numbered, just named) and his exploration of topics that can make wood burn big time. This is a book that very different in a lot of ways, so do not expect this to be a conventional vampire/character study/lesbian love/social justice novel.

I give this book four out of five stars.