Dracula

It is beyond the scope of a review to explore and analyze exactly what it is about certain stories that demand to be retold not just every century but often every year. Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” clearly tapped into a zeitgeist as immortal as his lead character. His own mortality prevented him from witnessing this, but I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering what his opinions would be on the countless interpretations of his work.

I went in to Luc Besson’s new film with skepticism. While he cites the historical background of Vlad, the Turks, and Vlad’s tragic princess being in the book, such a claim baffles this reviewer, as that has never been an element until screenwriter James V. Hart brought it into his own screenplay adaptation for the 1992 version that would become Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece, which also focused much more on the love than on the gore. This seemingly blatant borrowing (stealing?) from Hart and Coppola extends to the aesthetics, with Old Dracula’s hair strongly resembling the hyper-surreal and distinct style of Japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who was inspired by Kabuki as much as anything else, a merging of East and West to mirror the cultural reality at the time Stoker was writing.

But here the similarities end. Besson takes this framing and then runs with it in his own unique ways. His personal filmography is strikingly diverse, from the gritty realism of “The Professional, aka Leon” to the almost satirical and luridly fantastical The Fifth Element and The Messenger, a moving drama examining the many sides of Joan of Arc. Running through all of these films, no matter their genre, is a strain of humor that always seems to assure the viewer that this is not to be taken totally seriously. With material like “Dracula,” that humor could be inserted in a number of ways. Here, Besson elects to exercise restraint, with humor only bleeding through (pardon the pun) sparingly and subtly, particularly with Van Helsing, the famously eccentric vampire hunter, played here by Christoph Waltz with his customary range.

The focus here is the love story, the intensity of Vlad/Dracula’s undying love for his princess. Like Gary Oldman in Coppola’s iteration, actor Caleb Landry Jones is not conventionally handsome, but it is the extremity of his devotion that imbues him with an electric attraction. The myopia of his obsession and mission to rediscover his wife alternates between disturbing rejection and hostility to life and God – and a sort of blistering intense romance that appeals to the yearning in all of us. Here, for the first time to my knowledge, he is long aware of the probability of Elisabeta reincarnating, and a highlight of the film is the montage sequence of Vlad through the ages seeking his love out at parties from Florence to Germany to the Versailles of Marie Antoinette – and creating a blood bath of rage when he fails to find her. There is a scene in a nunnery that is perhaps the most visually compelling in the entire film.

Besson creates sequences of decadent glamor and exhilaration, with characters like Maria (compelling young actress Matilda de Angelis clearly playing the Lucy role from the novel) romping through London while hiding her own vampirism from Elisabeta’s new incarnation Mina (played by actress Rosanna Arquette’s daughter Zoe Bleu, quietly striking as befitting Mina Murray). Mina’s interactions with Abraham Van Helsing give a levity to the second act as well as up the ante of anticipation to meet the approaching Count. Robert Eggers’ recent “Nosferatu” lacked the operatic pacing the story needs, providing the style but not a lot of substance. Besson provides both, never losing his concentration on the emotional motivation propelling the characters. The stunning sets spanning the centuries only add to the telling, depicting the arc from young hopeful love to devastation and ruin.

Without giving spoilers, Besson makes changes that are odd at first then settle into making sense in his universe of Dracula, including replacing the infamous three brides with something… else. The tragedy of Dracula’s immortality is also depicted in ways not seen before, at least to this viewer, including the repeated attempts to kill himself in his misery and not being allowed by God to perish.

Dracula’s relationship with God is one of the most fascinating aspects of this adaptation, and how that relationship is then proxied by Van Helsing through to the end (no spoilers). If Dracula has any lessons, per se, the predominant one could be identified as the cost of resisting and rejecting the nature of reality, of loss and death, and of trying to take destiny into our own hands without doing so alongside a higher power. When we relinquish that resistance, however, and admit that such higher powers have reasons beyond mere human understanding, we can redeem ourselves and maybe even those we love. These themes are brought to beautiful life both visually and emotionally in Luc Besson’s vision of the immortal prince.