Nosferatu // by Robert Eggers. With Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult and Bill Skarsgård.
Robert Eggers, filmmaker with neat aesthetics and pronounced taste for dark stories, has taken up an ambitious challenge by attacking a cinema monument: Nosfer. More than a century after the expressionist masterpiece of FW Murnau, Eggers offers a rereading which, while paying homage to the original, seeks to affix its visual and narrative signature. If this contemporary version is full of ideas and moments of pure beauty, it suffers from certain imbalances which attenuate its global impact. From the first minutes, the stylistic imprint of Eggers is felt. The masterful photography evokes living paintings where each detail is meticulously composed.
Nosferatu is a Gothic fable, the story of an obsession between a tormented young woman and the terrifying vampire who fell in love with it, with all the horror she will spread in her wake.
The games of light and shadow, omnipresent, plunge the spectator into a Gothic atmosphere which amplifies the nightmare aspect of the story. The nocturnal scenes, almost monochrome, recall the black and grainy white of the Nosfer From 1922, while adding a touch of modernity that echoes the director's dreamlike universe. The work on chiaroscuro, associated with sequence plans which float between the characters, creates a total immersion. Eggers skillfully plays with visual textures to evoke a world on the border of reality and the supernatural. This approach gives birth to a horrific tale where beauty and horror constantly coexist.
However, this visual virtuosity, although striking, tends to take precedence over emotion. The beauty of the images sometimes seems to overshadow the narrative depth, as if the film was more a demonstration of know-how than a viscerally engaging story. The central character of Nosferatu, Count Orlok, is interpreted here by Bill Skarsgård. Known for his striking roles in horror films, the actor slips into the shoes of the famous vampire with a mixture of monstrosity and vulnerability. However, this version of the Count Divides. Using the grotesque appearance of the original vampire, Eggers adds a more barbaric, almost bestial dimension, which contrasts with the disturbing elegance to which the genre had accustomed us.
If this daring approach has the merit of surprising, it can also confuse. The vampire of Skarsgård, with its pace close to a “fair monster” or a wrestler, blurs the established codes of the myth. This aesthetic choice seems partly motivated by a desire to attract a new generation of spectators, but it risks alienating those who await a figure more in line with Dracula's classic iconography. Consequently, this nosferatu sometimes seems too eccentric to fully convince. In the role of Ellen, Lily-Rose Depp delivers a memorable performance. His character, torn between purity and perversion, sails in a difficult register where danger and strangeness are constantly involved.
She embodies this tormented woman with a discreet intensity, transcending the moralizing shackles of her role to make it a fascinating figure. His game evokes the great female interpretations of Gothic cinema, in particular that of Isabelle Adjani in the Nosfer by Werner Herzog. But Lily-Rose Depp brings an additional singularity: an almost ethereal strangeness, which amplifies the supernatural dimension of its scenes. The last plans in which it appears, close to the work of art, remain engraved in memory long after the credits. Around the main duo revolves a gallery of characters embodying various facets of history.
Nicholas Hoult, in the role of Thomas Hutter, brings an attractive pictorial romanticism to his trip to the carpats to Germany. Willem Dafoe, as a specialist in occultism, injects a dose of earthy energy into a vampire hunt that evokes adventure cinema. These interpretations enrich the universe of the film, but they struggle to compensate for a narration that lacks fluidity. The main problem lies in the narrative construction of the film. This sometimes gives the impression of a series of juxtaposed scenes rather than a coherent and fluid story. The steep transitions between certain passages harm immersion and strengthen the feeling of a disjointed whole.
-By wanting to integrate multiple influences and thematic, Eggers seems to have lost sight of the overall balance of his work. The main asset of Nosfer lies in its atmosphere. The Gothic aesthetics of the film, reinforced by significant music and a neat sound design, creates an immersive universe. Eggers favors the practical effects and reconstituted decorations, limiting the use of digital artifices to strengthen the authenticity of its world. This approach, rare in contemporary cinema, gives the film a particular, almost palpable texture. However, this visual success is not enough to fill the lack of emotion.
The film, while being impressive on the aesthetic level, remains curiously distant. The alchemy between the characters, especially between Ellen and the Count Orlok, is not fully exploited. The mutual attraction and the ambiguity of their relationship, central elements of the vampiric myth, are here attenuated, which prevents the spectator from investing emotionally. Eggers, filmmaker par excellence, multiplies the references in this remake. Black and white coexists with color, echoes in silent cinema mingle with spectacular sound effects, and scenes with the appearance of Gothic paintings alternate with moments of visceral horror. This creative ambition is laudable, but it sometimes leads to a compilation of influences that lack harmony.
The film is constantly oscillating between tribute and modernity, without managing to find a true own identity. This great creative appetite, although impressive, ends up serving the story by making it too busy. The very essence of Nosfernamely a simple and poetic terror, dilutes in this stylistic abundance. With sound NosferRobert Eggers delivers both fascinating and frustrating. If the film shines with his visual mastery and the Gothic atmosphere he establishes, he struggles to captivate on the narrative and emotional level. Count Orlok, daringly revisited, divides as much as he intrigues, while the central relationship between Ellen and the vampire lacks depth.
Ce Nosfer Above all is for author's cinema enthusiasts, seduced by the aesthetics worked and the oppressive atmospheres. But for those who hoped for a more visceral and emotional exploration of the myth, he risks leaving a feeling of unfinished. Eggers, wanting to integrate everything, sometimes seems to have moved away from the essential: a story where dread and fascination mix to transcend the screen. In short, Nosfer is an ambitious work, rich in ideas, but which fails to match the impact of previous versions. A film that is watched with admiration, but which leaves a taste of potential not fully exploited.
Note: 6.5/10. In short, a fascinating but imperfect rereading of a myth of cinema.
Released on December 25, 2024 in the cinema
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