Adrien Beau’s “The Vourdalak” has the feeling of a half-remembered nightmare. Ever wake up in the middle of the night from a dream, check the time, maybe take a sip of water, and slip back into your pillow with a sense of dread that’s weirdly, vaguely pleasurable? Maybe it’s just me and Beau and the filmmakers who’ve inspired him, such as Roger Corman, Mario Bava, Jean Rollin, and, more recently, Peter Strickland. Don’t worry if you don’t know their work, as “The Vourdalak” is not designed to be a test. It’s trim, tart, funny and quite beautiful in its own right.
“The Vourdalak” is based on an 1839 novella by A.K. Tolstoy, and the film’s marketing has been sure to observe that the source material is older than Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” the most seminal vampire art in the Western canon. That gives you an idea of what you’re dealing with: “Dracula” with more obscure superstitions. Unlike most vampire movies, even among the higher-toned division, “The Vourdalak” is a true gothic. It has castles and shadows and nooks and crannies, especially those dark crevices of the heart, with its submerged desires that are begging for release by a supernatural interloper.
Traveling across war-ravaged Europe in olden times, the French nobleman Marquis d’Urfé (Kacey Mottet-Klein) is attacked and left adrift somewhere in the countryside, where he is directed to seek the manor of Gorcha and his family. Among them, there’s a macho son (Grégoire Colin), his effeminate younger brother (Vassili Schneider), and their beautiful, grieving sister (Ariane Labed), whom the Marquis awkwardly attempts to bed. Gorcha is missing, having left to fight Turkish bandits. When he returns, Gorcha is clearly inhuman, which Beau plays for wicked satire.
Beau has found a new-ish idea for vampires: as a metaphor for aging people who’re terrified of loosening their grip on the next generation. Yes, that idea has always been inherent to the material, but it’s rarely this pointed. I won’t belabor this, but, given our current political moment, a certain subtext announces itself. Grounding the political is the personal, which is the intimate struggle of dealing with older people with dwindling abilities in all of their poignancy and infuriation. Gorcha’s family will not admit that his wishes, including killing a dog during an outside dinner, are callous and insane.
And Beau ups the ante with an audacious flourish: Gorcha is voiced by the filmmaker and played by a marionette, which renders the character’s inhumanness all the more obvious and the family’s delusions of his normalcy all the more ridiculous. It’s a brilliant touch that steers “The Vourdalak” into the surreal political terrain of filmmaker Luis Buñuel. More remarkable still is Beau’s ability to render Gorcha a truly formidable character with pathos. Gorcha is haughty, ridiculous, vicious, creepy, and maddening—a memorable monster who’s more than a vintage special effect. The sumptuous gothic atmosphere intensifies the film’s poignancy. David Chizallet’s cinematography suggests faded autumnal watercolor paintings with explosions of vibrant blood, evoking the lush eeriness of old, usually European, horror films.
“The Vourdalak” is a “vibe” movie, though the sharp comedy and potent carnage keep the film from turning into a museum exhibit. Another subtext gradually emerges, concerning men who are conditioned by barbarous standards to suppress their softer and less conventional elements. I’m not talking about a shrill harangue over “toxic masculinity,” but, as in “The Bikeriders,” an empathetic and nuanced acknowledgement of why men might want to hide behind their power and avarice.
Talking-heads documentaries about famous people usually aren’t aesthetically interesting. Filmed interviews don’t often allow for cinematic bravura, and the sentiments expressed are cautious and vague, as one would expect. “Remembering Gene Wilder,” for instance, is moving without telling you anything new about Wilder or his comic methods. “Faye,” however, is toothier than the genre typically allows for, if for nothing else than because it concerns the singularly ferocious Faye Dunaway.
In our current climate, there are no prominent actresses who can come close to matching the run of performances that Dunaway gave off and on from “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967 to “Mommie Dearest” in 1981. Our cautious climate doesn’t allow for it, from our obsession with franchise movies to the timidity that’s exhibited in ensuring that female characters are “empowered,” rather than human. (Somehow, Cate Blanchett has managed to elude this straitjacket of empowerment.)
Dunaway, however, created characters of extravagant, neurotic grace. Their emotions bled up to the surface of their skin, yet they’re still mysterious, unknowable. Look at the terror and delicacy of Evelyn Mulwray in “Chinatown,” who is perhaps the most nuanced troubled woman in neo-noir. Or behold the incendiary wrath of Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest,” whom Dunaway renders operatic and unforgettably needful—her violence is monstrous yet rooted in the self-loathing that often spurs child abuse. For such a beautiful woman, it is remarkable that Dunaway never got stuck playing “the girl.” And that is perhaps because Dunaway’s will is as ironclad as that of her characters.
Directed by Laurent Bouzereau, a master of surprisingly textured promotional documentaries, “Faye” never goes as far you might like into Dunaway, whether we’re talking her controversies or working methods, but it benefits from her intriguing mixture of volatility and vulnerability. Bouzereau interviews Dunaway and her adopted son, Liam, and their relationship becomes a way into her life and career, including an Oscar for “Network,” and skirmishes with Roman Polanski and Bette Davis, as well as admiring collaborations with actors like Jack Nicholson, Mickey Rourke, and Johnny Depp. Unsurprisingly, it’s the bad boys who appear to ‘get’ her most.
The reminiscences we hear throughout “Faye” could be more detailed, but they are unusually direct and soulful. At 83, Dunaway is still fiery and not especially given to platitudes. We hear of her bipolar disorder, of alcoholism, of bridges burned, and her demons are contrasted with the fruits they helped to bear: the work itself. And yet no one here indulges in triumph-minded syrup. The tone of “Faye” mirrors the glamorous, ecstatic, yet mournful aura of that legendary picture that future second husband Terry O’Neill took of Dunaway sprawled out on a chair in front of a pool with her Oscar on a table. Fulfillment and desolation are side by side here, as bedfellows.
Lee Isaac Chung’s “Twisters” is devoted to the rambling vibe of Jan De Bont’s 1996 “Twister,” which seems to be the rare movie that’s beloved because it’s boring. And the boringness is soothing in that watch-on-TNT-on-Sunday afternoon way, which people probably take as a reprieve from the frenetic desperation of most summer blockbusters, in the 1990s as well as now. “Twisters” is a similarly amiable, low-stakes entertainment, though Chung has turned it into a Hallmark movie with elaborate special effects. It goes down easy: If the first “Twister” was a comedy of remarriage, the new one is about a workaholic who needs to ace the big assignment on her way to kindling love with the hunk who’s more sensitive than he appears to be.
Said hunk, played by Glen Powell, is the best thing about “Twisters,” as he does a corny, old-fashioned bit of movie-star hamming that ties the room together. A movie with this little going on in it — it is about chasing storms after all — needs this kind of big and broad acting. It’s a pity that his co-star, seemingly by design, doesn’t match his brio. I didn’t think someone could give a performance less interesting than Daisy Ridley’s in the recent “Star Wars” movies. Well, here’s Daisy Edgar-Jones saying “hold my beer.”
“Twisters” might’ve been more fun if Powell’s foil was as over-the-top as he is, so they could fall into a battle of wills that feels adult. Think of what Adria Arjona brought last month to “Hit Man” opposite of Powell. They were a flirty-sexy dream team. The banter here, even when it’s not supposed to be sexy, is paltry. Snappy repartee is a lost art after all. But, again, think Hallmark: those movies are bland by design. Chung is thinking ahead to the thousands of times that this thing will be on cable, or the dozens of different ways it will be available to stream by Christmas.
How are the storms? Fine, but De Bont’s were scarier and more painterly. Chung stages a decent bit of business in a swimming pool, but the set pieces are mostly cluttered and exist adjacent to the point, which is the chasing of the storms in pick-up trucks against a country music soundtrack. If only Chung had leaned further into the country-boy hokum. There’s a moment where you’re led to assume that Powell is about to interrupt his courtship of Edgar-Jones to enter a rodeo. It doesn’t happen and you may be inclined to ask “In God’s name why not?” “Twisters” is an inherently cheesy movie. Why fight it? Pile on the cheddar. Summer movies often seem afraid of being memorable.
“The Vourdalak” is now playing at Movieland and “Faye” is streaming on Max. “Twisters” is playing in theaters everywhere.
