WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Daughters of Darkness

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb

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<v Speaker 2>and this is Joe McCormick, and we're back with Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>another classic erotic vampire movie. I know it wasn't that

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<v Speaker 2>long ago that we covered nineteen eighty three's The Hunger,

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<v Speaker 2>but despite some thematic similarities, today's film, nineteen seventy one's

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<v Speaker 2>Daughters of Darkness is an entirely different cinematic experience. Like

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<v Speaker 2>The Hunger, it does paint with erotic cues while also

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<v Speaker 2>pursuing its own high minded ideas. It'd be easy to

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<v Speaker 2>dismiss this one, certainly if you just watch the trailers,

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<v Speaker 2>or maybe just look at a few posters as being

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<v Speaker 2>more in the exploitation zone. But this is a beautiful

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<v Speaker 2>and haunting film that is composed with deliberate style and intention.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I would agree with that. Despite its main things

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<v Speaker 3>being sort of love, sex and romance in the context

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<v Speaker 3>of murder and a vampire story, it's not a very

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<v Speaker 3>romantic film. Actually, it's like it shows a quite bleak

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<v Speaker 3>side of love, but is psychologically fascinating.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, it's very, very fascinating. On the psychological front. Now

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<v Speaker 2>other ways that it ties in with past episodes of

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<v Speaker 2>Weird House. I think we could consider this another off

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<v Speaker 2>season European holiday horror film. Okay, similar in ways to

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<v Speaker 2>Footprints on the Moon. Hmmm, all right. I think it

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<v Speaker 2>is our first Belgian movie, though this was an international

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<v Speaker 2>co production, so ultimately like this was a multinational effort

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<v Speaker 2>to make Daughters of Darkness. We'll get into some of

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<v Speaker 2>the details of that as we go.

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<v Speaker 3>There's a lot of seemingly random correlation between accents and

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<v Speaker 3>where characters are supposed to be from.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes. Also, of note, this is our second Lady Bathory

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<v Speaker 2>Lady by film. This is a character that pops up

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<v Speaker 2>of course, is of course you know, has historical origins,

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<v Speaker 2>but often pops up in far from historically accurate horror

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<v Speaker 2>and horror related media. So you hear her name pronounced

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<v Speaker 2>in various ways, from Bathory to BATORI we get the

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<v Speaker 2>I think the much more convincing, buttry in this picture.

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<v Speaker 2>But a version of this character last popped up on

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<v Speaker 2>Weird House Cinema in the Paul Nashy film Night of

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<v Speaker 2>the Werewolf from nineteen eighty Oh.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, I vaguely recall that did we ever talk about

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<v Speaker 3>how there's a metal band that I've actually never listened to,

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<v Speaker 3>can't vouch from, don't know if they're any good, but

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<v Speaker 3>a metal band called Bathory seems like right kind of theme,

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<v Speaker 3>you know, murder, bathing in blood, that kind of thing,

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<v Speaker 3>some kind of metal band. But they've got one of

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<v Speaker 3>those calligraphy fonts on their name and it looks like

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<v Speaker 3>it says bat lord.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, that couldn't help I think the already confused issue

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<v Speaker 2>of the pronunciation there.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh right, yeah, so you say but Torri, I say

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<v Speaker 3>bat lord.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, probably and batlrd you know it does? You know?

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<v Speaker 2>That's I think that's the confusing thing about it. Lady.

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<v Speaker 2>The stories of Lady Butri are often associated with a

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<v Speaker 2>bath of blood. Yeah, it's she's associated to some degree

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<v Speaker 2>with vampires and therefore vampires and bats. So you know,

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<v Speaker 2>things can get out of whack pretty quickly.

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<v Speaker 3>There's actually a scene in Daughters of Darkness where she

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<v Speaker 3>puts her cape up like a bat, even though she

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<v Speaker 3>never transforms.

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<v Speaker 2>Into a bat in the movie.

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<v Speaker 3>We get no animal transformations at all in the film,

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<v Speaker 3>but she's like standing up in a big sand dune

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<v Speaker 3>in the nighttime and we see the kind of purple

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<v Speaker 3>blue sky behind her and she just like puts up

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<v Speaker 3>the bat wings.

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<v Speaker 2>It's a beautiful shot. Yeah, yeah, classic. This is a

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<v Speaker 2>film that has a very strong cult following at this point.

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<v Speaker 2>It's been popping up on lists for me over the

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<v Speaker 2>years whenever I look up interesting vampire films, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>certainly from the nineteen seventies, and this one also came

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<v Speaker 2>highly recommended from the folks at Videodrome here in Atlanta,

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<v Speaker 2>who I believe hosted a screening of it just last year,

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<v Speaker 2>but I don't think I was in town at the time,

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<v Speaker 2>so I did not go.

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<v Speaker 3>Am I right that you ended up picking this because

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<v Speaker 3>you were asking them for French films and this is

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<v Speaker 3>this is as close as you could get to a

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<v Speaker 3>wee French movie you wanted.

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<v Speaker 2>They have a lot of French films, and there are

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<v Speaker 2>a lot of French horror films. I've found it challenging

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<v Speaker 2>over the years here to pick one, pick a French

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<v Speaker 2>weird house film that is also this sort of film

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<v Speaker 2>that would be fun for us to talk about. Like,

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<v Speaker 2>there's some really hard hitting French horror films, and they're

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<v Speaker 2>not necessarily my cup of tea or necessarily what we'd

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<v Speaker 2>want to talk about on the show. I don't know,

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<v Speaker 2>and some others just didn't feel like the right pick

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<v Speaker 2>at the right time. So I'm always open to listener

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<v Speaker 2>suggestions on this front. I've got a few on my list. Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>maybe we'll get around to them.

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<v Speaker 3>But again what you said earlier. Daughters of Darkness, despite

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<v Speaker 3>being an international action, is mostly Belgian in origin, and

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<v Speaker 3>it takes place within Belgium as well. It takes place

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<v Speaker 3>at a seaside town or a seaside city on the

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<v Speaker 3>Belgian coast called Ostan or I think, depending on whether

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<v Speaker 3>you have the Dutch pronunciation or the French, it might

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<v Speaker 3>be Ostend as well. But it's yeah, this like deserted

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<v Speaker 3>seaside community, which is one of the bleakest types of

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<v Speaker 3>settings there is. I've realized, like being next to the ocean,

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<v Speaker 3>but there being nobody.

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<v Speaker 2>On the beach.

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<v Speaker 3>That's the thing that gives me chills when I see it.

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<v Speaker 3>I didn't I didn't realize that really until this movie.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I mean this, This film is very well shot.

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<v Speaker 2>A lot of intense selection went into the various scenes

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<v Speaker 2>that we have in the In the picture and so

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<v Speaker 2>they really lean into this idea of, you know, the

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<v Speaker 2>desolate seaside town of the of the coast being kind

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<v Speaker 2>of like the edge of civilization and time and so forth. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>definitely an off season vacation movie, though I'm to understand

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<v Speaker 2>they didn't necessarily shoot everything off season, like some of

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<v Speaker 2>this stuff was shot in July. Wow, huh.

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<v Speaker 3>To refine what I said a little bit, Actually, I

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<v Speaker 3>think it's specifically the fact that it's like a beach

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<v Speaker 3>made to be full of people. So you see chairs

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<v Speaker 3>and little changing houses and everything like it's it's usually populated.

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<v Speaker 3>I guess it would be less, it would have less

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<v Speaker 3>of this kind of impact if it were more of

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<v Speaker 3>a beach in a wilderness. But it's not that it's

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<v Speaker 3>a beach right in the right world. The hotels let out,

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<v Speaker 3>so it should be full of tourists, and it's not.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, even when they go to Bruges, Yeah, there's very

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<v Speaker 2>few people around. Like everything feels a little bit like

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<v Speaker 2>a ghost town for our characters here. The only different world.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, yeah, the only local attraction in Bruges is the

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<v Speaker 3>the murder Victim. It's like, yeah, get your tickets to

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<v Speaker 3>see the hand to pop out of the gurney one

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<v Speaker 3>more time.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you guys didn't go to the museums. What's up? Oh?

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<v Speaker 2>They do ride what's it called? They ride one of

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<v Speaker 2>those little boats in the canals. Yeah. Is it a

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<v Speaker 2>gondola if it's in Bruges. I don't know technically, but

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<v Speaker 2>they do ride with the dude wearing.

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<v Speaker 3>The UFO Elvis sunglasses. They're crazy. Yeah, we will have

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<v Speaker 3>a lot to say. I'm sure about the fashion choices

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<v Speaker 3>throughout the film, because this movie is extremely invested in style.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, because it's not only a film full of

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<v Speaker 2>dismal landscapes, but also just dazzling splashes of color, generally

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<v Speaker 2>red and green, sometimes white, pure light even and of

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<v Speaker 2>course darkness. And often all of these elements seem to

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<v Speaker 2>be like speaking in a code, you know, like why

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<v Speaker 2>is this actor wearing red right now? And what does

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<v Speaker 2>that mean? When suddenly they're wearing white and this one's

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<v Speaker 2>wearing red. It doesn't feel random. It feels very intentional,

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<v Speaker 2>but like it's it's blinking a code to me that

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<v Speaker 2>I'm supposed to decipher.

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<v Speaker 3>Like the character Valerie is very coded as white and gold,

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<v Speaker 3>whereas the character of the Countess is very black, white

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<v Speaker 3>and red, which has some kind of unsavory associations. Even

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<v Speaker 3>if you don't make the connection consciously, I feel like

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<v Speaker 3>you can kind of sense it there. This looks like

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<v Speaker 3>a flag I've seen before.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I was watching some extras. I think I

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<v Speaker 2>was listening to the commentary track with the director and

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<v Speaker 2>one of the screenwriters, Harry Comel. He said, these are

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<v Speaker 2>the colors of dictatorship, and they're reflected throughout the film

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<v Speaker 2>and also in this character. But then also sometimes she's

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<v Speaker 2>a mirror.

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<v Speaker 3>Ball, that's true. Yeah, the full sequin dress. Yeah, she's

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<v Speaker 3>the disco ball. Yeah, some fabulous gowns, fabulous gowns. But

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<v Speaker 3>like some other romantically themed vampire movies, this movie also,

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<v Speaker 3>I think, is very concerned with the kind of subtleties

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<v Speaker 3>of power and domination within romantic relationships.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, as many have pointed out over the years and

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<v Speaker 2>will become obvious in our discussion but also in any

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<v Speaker 2>of your individual viewings of the picture, it's a film

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<v Speaker 2>deeply concerned with the patriarchal control. And we might very

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<v Speaker 2>roughly see Stephan, our lead male character, as paradoxically an

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<v Speaker 2>individual who exists on both sides of this control directly

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<v Speaker 2>subjicated by patriarchal control, and also exerting increasingly violent patriarchal

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<v Speaker 2>control over his new bride and any women who ventured

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<v Speaker 2>too close. But again, not all of this often feels

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<v Speaker 2>like it is very It's presented in at least a

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<v Speaker 2>semi cryptic fashion, so it's not too on the nose

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<v Speaker 2>with a lot of these points. Sometimes it's a little

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<v Speaker 2>on the nose, but a lot of it. It gives

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<v Speaker 2>you a lot to think about. It's a lot to

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<v Speaker 2>contemplate concerning the psychology of the picture.

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<v Speaker 3>I liked what you said about it feeling like it

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<v Speaker 3>takes place in another world that's really sinking in for me. Now,

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<v Speaker 3>I don't think I put it in those words myself,

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<v Speaker 3>but yes, this movie does feel like it is a

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<v Speaker 3>place where the characters have kind of ventured outside of

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<v Speaker 3>reality and outside of normal life into these otherwise deserted

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<v Speaker 3>play places like I think it's significant that most of

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<v Speaker 3>the film takes place in luxury environments, environments where people

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<v Speaker 3>go for recreation to have a good time a fancy

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<v Speaker 3>expensive hotel or these beachside resorts and tour buses and

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<v Speaker 3>train compartments, and you know, like a luxury train compartment,

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<v Speaker 3>private compartment. They're all like places where rich people play.

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<v Speaker 3>And our characters come into these places where rich people play,

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<v Speaker 3>but they're deserted of all the other people. It's like

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<v Speaker 3>they were set up as some kind of experiment, like

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<v Speaker 3>just to have these characters in particular kind of clash

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<v Speaker 3>together and interact. There's something that feels intentionally kind of

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<v Speaker 3>surreal and artificial about it, like that it is supposed

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<v Speaker 3>to feel that way, that like we're kind of dolls

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<v Speaker 3>being played with.

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<v Speaker 2>Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah, it does. And

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<v Speaker 2>to the dreamlike aspect of things, the non reality aspects

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<v Speaker 2>of things. I mean, there was at one point in

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<v Speaker 2>one of the extras I was watching or listening to,

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<v Speaker 2>the director said films are not reality, they are dreams,

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<v Speaker 2>which I think is something that does reson It certainly

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<v Speaker 2>resonates throughout this picture.

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<v Speaker 3>That makes sense having seen this movie. Yeah, that spirit

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<v Speaker 3>is running through it. There is a.

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<v Speaker 2>Dream like quality where.

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<v Speaker 3>You know, actions aren't always fully explained, they're not always logical,

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<v Speaker 3>but they also make a kind of symbolic sense. It

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<v Speaker 3>feels like they mean something, even if you couldn't say

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<v Speaker 3>what it is.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and This is of course intensified by so many

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<v Speaker 2>of the different visual choices that are made. There are

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<v Speaker 2>these frequent red out transitions that I really liked in

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<v Speaker 2>the picture, which of course feels very appropriate for a

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<v Speaker 2>vampire film, a film concerned with blood, But it also

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<v Speaker 2>just adds to this feeling that like everything is some

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<v Speaker 2>sort of a fever dream, you know, and we're just

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<v Speaker 2>sort of, you know, redding out from one scene into

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<v Speaker 2>the next as the blood is surging to our head

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<v Speaker 2>or something.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's interesting. There's another thing I was thinking about

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<v Speaker 3>the transitions in the movie.

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<v Speaker 2>Did you notice a kind.

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<v Speaker 3>Of weird pattern where a scene will kind of like

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<v Speaker 3>escalate to negativity, where characters, like at the end of

0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.240
<v Speaker 3>a scene are in maximal conflict, and then it'll cut

0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.120
<v Speaker 3>and that'll be the end of the scene. And then

0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.200
<v Speaker 3>the next time we see the characters again, they are

0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.520
<v Speaker 3>behaving cooperatively or even happily together, And do you know

0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:48.400
<v Speaker 3>what I'm talking about?

0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, there's several

0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.400
<v Speaker 2>key examples of this, and they yeah, it does sort

0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.520
<v Speaker 2>of add to this kind of dreamlike quality, but also

0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.160
<v Speaker 2>in a way that I mean, it doesn't in the

0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.320
<v Speaker 2>sense that the dream we see here is a reflection

0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.400
<v Speaker 2>of real life. So it's not like the characters are

0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.960
<v Speaker 2>behaving like unrealistically, but we were getting that kind of

0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.400
<v Speaker 2>like kaleidoscope vision of their lives.

0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.280
<v Speaker 3>I'm thinking specifically of the kind of like horrible awkwardness

0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.440
<v Speaker 3>while while they're on the bus returning from Bruges, well,

0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.120
<v Speaker 3>Valerie and stephan they have this kind of argument about

0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.680
<v Speaker 3>something that really should be a major red flag about

0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.800
<v Speaker 3>Stephana and like this guy is oops, I'm married a

0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.400
<v Speaker 3>serial killer. Like this guy's not good, and then it

0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.320
<v Speaker 3>gets even weirder from there, and then we cut away

0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:33.960
<v Speaker 3>after that, and the next time we see them, they're

0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:35.920
<v Speaker 3>coming in the door from out of the rain, like

0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.760
<v Speaker 3>laughing and just you know, having a great time.

0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, I mean maybe they're they're kind of faking

0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:43.480
<v Speaker 2>it a little bit there, I don't know.

0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.440
<v Speaker 3>But we don't see the resolutions from those moments where

0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.640
<v Speaker 3>the terror or the awkwardness is just left hanging.

0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.839
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, which I think kind of works in a major

0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.080
<v Speaker 2>way because since we don't see resolution, we don't see

0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.280
<v Speaker 2>them patching it up. For us us, it feels all

0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.480
<v Speaker 2>the more unresolved. You know, we don't see the tender

0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.559
<v Speaker 2>moment that allows them to move on to the next

0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.760
<v Speaker 2>few hours. So we're like, what are you guys doing here?

0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.560
<v Speaker 2>This is not working. This is a this is a

0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.080
<v Speaker 2>doomed romance even without vampires involved.

0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.480
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So normally we would do some trailer audio about

0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.360
<v Speaker 3>the film that rob understand that you checked out the trailers,

0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:24.320
<v Speaker 3>then they're no good.

0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.760
<v Speaker 2>Oh they're they're terrible. Like, I'm so glad I watched

0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.680
<v Speaker 2>this movie without having seen a trailer for it, because

0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.280
<v Speaker 2>this is one of those cases where the trailers either

0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.640
<v Speaker 2>misrepresent things about the film or outright spoil things, and

0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.040
<v Speaker 2>certainly visually spoil a lot of the key moments. So

0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.120
<v Speaker 2>I would advise against the trailers. Just just pick up

0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:46.960
<v Speaker 2>the film if you want to see it. And if

0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.760
<v Speaker 2>you want to see it, you're in luck because this

0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.120
<v Speaker 2>one's presently available to stream, at least in the States

0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.800
<v Speaker 2>on a number of platforms, including Shutter and two B,

0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.920
<v Speaker 2>so like there are options at all, you know, budget levels.

0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.200
<v Speaker 2>And there was an excellent blu ray of it out

0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.800
<v Speaker 2>from Blue Underground from several years back, and that's what

0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.600
<v Speaker 2>I watched it on. I rented it from Videodrome and

0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.360
<v Speaker 2>it has a great array of extras and commentary tracks.

0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.200
<v Speaker 3>I just had to stream this one. But yeah, I

0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.480
<v Speaker 3>would say more than most of the movies we watched,

0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.280
<v Speaker 3>this is one where I really want to know more

0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.720
<v Speaker 3>about the process, so I would be interested in those extras.

0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.040
<v Speaker 3>I want to know what the creators were thinking.

0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's fascinating. I didn't have time to even explore

0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.480
<v Speaker 2>all of the extras. And because they're like three different

0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:36.280
<v Speaker 2>commentary tracks, you know, like multiple hours worth of content,

0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.280
<v Speaker 2>And you know, it seems like there's a lot of

0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.840
<v Speaker 2>interesting behind the scenes stories and you know, I'll pass

0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:43.840
<v Speaker 2>on some of those, but you know, this is a

0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.200
<v Speaker 2>film that people have been talking about ensuring their experiences

0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.080
<v Speaker 2>making it for decades at this point, and so you know,

0:15:50.120 --> 0:16:00.440
<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of lore out there. All right, let's

0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.680
<v Speaker 2>talk about the people who made the picture, starting at

0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.720
<v Speaker 2>the top with Harry Kommel, the director and one of

0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:10.240
<v Speaker 2>the screenwriters. Born nineteen forty Belgian film director, best known

0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.000
<v Speaker 2>for this film certainly internationally, which achieved cult status throughout

0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.960
<v Speaker 2>Europe and the United States and is now considered a

0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.080
<v Speaker 2>classic of its genre. He was active as a director

0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.240
<v Speaker 2>from around nineteen fifty three through two thousand and three,

0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.400
<v Speaker 2>and while Daughters of Darkness was his big cold hit,

0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.640
<v Speaker 2>his most critically successful film was the follow up I

0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.320
<v Speaker 2>believe it also came out in nineteen seventy one, The

0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.720
<v Speaker 2>Legend of doom House or it's also known as Malpatrie.

0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.600
<v Speaker 2>That one stars Orson Wells and Susan Hampshire.

0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:42.880
<v Speaker 3>I've had this one on the list for a bit,

0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.840
<v Speaker 3>but I've never seen it. Of course, it's seventies Orson Wells,

0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.560
<v Speaker 3>which I'm here for that, and it just looked like

0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.560
<v Speaker 3>it looked suitably weird, so I've been wanting to check

0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:53.240
<v Speaker 3>it out for a bit.

0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, supposed to be great. Another picture of his note

0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.840
<v Speaker 2>is nineteen sixty nine's Monsieur Howarden, which also has something

0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.320
<v Speaker 2>of a following concerning the tale of a nineteenth century

0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.000
<v Speaker 2>French female cross dresser whose two male lovers fight a

0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.399
<v Speaker 2>duel over her, apparently based on an historic person, but

0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.440
<v Speaker 2>I don't know the full story there. But as far

0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.200
<v Speaker 2>as Daughters of Darkness goes splendid work here and the

0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.640
<v Speaker 2>interview extras that I've watched and listened to, he comes

0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.200
<v Speaker 2>off as very detail oriented, and I know that others

0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.720
<v Speaker 2>have also talked about him being very detail oriented and

0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.600
<v Speaker 2>a bit weird, but he points out that with Daughters

0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:31.639
<v Speaker 2>of Darkness, they really wanted to make a film that

0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.480
<v Speaker 2>was not only artistically solid but also fun, giving its

0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.680
<v Speaker 2>genre trappings, and you know, I would I would say

0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:40.840
<v Speaker 2>that I agree with that. It's you know, it's not

0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's not you know, an explosion every minute

0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.240
<v Speaker 2>or anything like that. A lot of people have pointed

0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.480
<v Speaker 2>out that it has maybe kind of a slow burn

0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:54.000
<v Speaker 2>build in some respects, certainly for a genre picture. But yeah,

0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.240
<v Speaker 2>I feel like it was pretty fun throughout.

0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.720
<v Speaker 3>There are certainly sometimes when it gets it gets very dark,

0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.760
<v Speaker 3>but it's not. It's a very attention gripping picture. It

0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.760
<v Speaker 3>is easy to stick with, at least in my experience.

0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.520
<v Speaker 2>All Right, moving on to some of the other writers.

0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:15.120
<v Speaker 2>Pierre Drew born nineteen forty three was also associate producer.

0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.840
<v Speaker 2>He was also a director in his own right. In

0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.040
<v Speaker 2>the extras on the Blue Underground discs, he reminisces on

0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.359
<v Speaker 2>the three weeks he spent writing the script with Harry

0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.560
<v Speaker 2>before the director who's also present in this extra with him,

0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.520
<v Speaker 2>reminds him that it was actually three days. They were

0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.639
<v Speaker 2>somewhat older at this point. It had been a long time.

0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:41.359
<v Speaker 2>But that sounds like Roger Corman and Charles Griffith. Yeah,

0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.240
<v Speaker 2>it's different. Recollections on how this came together. Yeah, but

0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.560
<v Speaker 2>came together it did. Drew's other credits as a writer

0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:54.120
<v Speaker 2>include nineteen eighty seven's Mascara starring Charlotte Rampling Let's See Then.

0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Also Jean Ferry nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy four

0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.000
<v Speaker 2>also credit on the screen French writer who also contributed

0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.879
<v Speaker 2>to Malpatri that we referenced to earlier. And there are

0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:06.919
<v Speaker 2>a couple of other names that are also cited for

0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.520
<v Speaker 2>work on the screenplay. And I believe Kummel and Drew

0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.840
<v Speaker 2>also mentioned an American who did something. But I believe

0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.200
<v Speaker 2>that Kummel and Drew are considered like the main writers

0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:18.879
<v Speaker 2>on this picture.

0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.679
<v Speaker 3>But at the center of this movie, you've got a

0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.359
<v Speaker 3>bathory or a batty or a vampire. Let's say so,

0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.600
<v Speaker 3>who is our vampire countess?

0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.040
<v Speaker 2>It is Delphine Serik, who lived nineteen thirty two through

0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.680
<v Speaker 2>nineteen ninety And oh my goodness, she is amazing in this.

0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.879
<v Speaker 2>This is just this is just a breathtaking performance. This

0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.159
<v Speaker 2>is one of those performances where anytime she is on

0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.600
<v Speaker 2>the screen, and thankfully she's on the screen a lot.

0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.480
<v Speaker 2>You're just totally captivated by every little choice she's making,

0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.760
<v Speaker 2>you know, with her body language, with her voice. I mean,

0:19:54.800 --> 0:20:00.359
<v Speaker 2>her voice alone is just amazing. What are our eyes doing?

0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.639
<v Speaker 2>It's just such a complete and total performance.

0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:10.760
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Yes, the way she embodies a kind of violent glamour,

0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:16.080
<v Speaker 3>this kind of passive aggressive predation, the way she's always

0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.280
<v Speaker 3>the way she's always saying, like be nice to me.

0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.320
<v Speaker 3>Oh man, it's so evil and it's so good.

0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:27.639
<v Speaker 2>So playing our Hungarian countess. We have yet. Lebanese born

0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:33.640
<v Speaker 2>French actress Delphine serig here Ye star of stage and screen,

0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.119
<v Speaker 2>also a film director in her own right, a major

0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.160
<v Speaker 2>European star in her day, as well as a prominent

0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.560
<v Speaker 2>French feminist. She rose to stardom with nineteen sixty one's

0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.200
<v Speaker 2>Last Year at Marimbad, which was based on the novel

0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.560
<v Speaker 2>by Alan Robe Grillat, an author that I've I've read

0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.480
<v Speaker 2>quite a bit of, but I've never watched any of

0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.720
<v Speaker 2>his films. This was an adaptation of his films, and

0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.399
<v Speaker 2>then he directed a number of films, but I have

0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.919
<v Speaker 2>not seen any of his film work. The picture in

0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:05.159
<v Speaker 2>question last year at Marion Bed was directed by Francis

0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:11.360
<v Speaker 2>alan Renee, who subsequently cast Sarigh in nineteen sixty threes

0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.760
<v Speaker 2>Muriel and subsequent films of note for her include nineteen

0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.520
<v Speaker 2>sixty nine's Mister Freedom, nineteen seventies Donkey Skin, seventy two's

0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.320
<v Speaker 2>The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie, nineteen seventy threes, The

0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.120
<v Speaker 2>Day of the Jackal in nineteen seventy four's The Black Windmill.

0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.119
<v Speaker 3>Donkey Skin multiply recommended to us that's been on the

0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:31.480
<v Speaker 3>weird House list for a bit.

0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:33.760
<v Speaker 2>Well, if she's in it, all the more reason to

0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.479
<v Speaker 2>see it, because I had not seen her in anything before.

0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.680
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, she was at the time a big star

0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:44.760
<v Speaker 2>and the only actor that they actively tried to get

0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:46.800
<v Speaker 2>for this picture. And then we're kind of shocked that

0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.720
<v Speaker 2>they were able to get her attached to the film.

0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.440
<v Speaker 2>In some of the commentary tracks, like they point out

0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.960
<v Speaker 2>that apparently she was paid in cash, like a purse

0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.199
<v Speaker 2>is full of like a whole bunch of European cash.

0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:04.840
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what that means, but I like it.

0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.280
<v Speaker 2>It sounds like it means something. Yeah, so basically I'm

0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.800
<v Speaker 2>to understand. So again, this was a multinational production here,

0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.080
<v Speaker 2>and she was the only person who was intentionally cast

0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.440
<v Speaker 2>for the picture. Everyone else was provided. I believe Harry

0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.879
<v Speaker 2>Kumbo's words were sight unseen by the various international producers.

0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:30.000
<v Speaker 2>So Canada sent somebody, the US sent somebody, Germany sent

0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.800
<v Speaker 2>a couple of people, and then it had to come together,

0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:39.760
<v Speaker 2>you know. I believe it's the I believe John Carlin,

0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.960
<v Speaker 2>who plays stuff in the commentary track with him, he

0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.040
<v Speaker 2>pointed out that like the cast here was kind of

0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.640
<v Speaker 2>an accident, but then again it works, And he made

0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:50.560
<v Speaker 2>a great point. He said, like any good movie is

0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.560
<v Speaker 2>kind of an accident, like if it comes together and works,

0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.959
<v Speaker 2>like there's so many forces just completely out of anybody's control.

0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:57.680
<v Speaker 2>That's true.

0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.240
<v Speaker 3>A film is pretty much always a collaboration, so there

0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.639
<v Speaker 3>there's more chaos in how it comes together. And also

0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.120
<v Speaker 3>i'd say, because of that, a little bit more magic

0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:09.119
<v Speaker 3>than something that is an art project created by just

0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:09.719
<v Speaker 3>one person.

0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:14.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, Now, as far as I can tell, everyone

0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:19.600
<v Speaker 2>was excited to work with sarac on this, and everyone

0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:22.400
<v Speaker 2>just had really nice things to say about working with her.

0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.159
<v Speaker 2>By all accounts, she brought note on not only her

0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.439
<v Speaker 2>own sheer talent, and effortless charisma to the production. But

0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.199
<v Speaker 2>she was one of those actors that helped elevate everyone's craft,

0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.480
<v Speaker 2>you know, like in people she had scenes with, she

0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.119
<v Speaker 2>would go out of her way to improve their performance

0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.159
<v Speaker 2>and make them feel at ease. And then she would

0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.080
<v Speaker 2>even improve upon things, improve upon the direction that was

0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:45.960
<v Speaker 2>given her in ways where the director was like, well,

0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:48.560
<v Speaker 2>that was obviously the right choice because you made it work.

0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:51.640
<v Speaker 3>There are so many things about her performance that really

0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:55.119
<v Speaker 3>work very well. But one of them, again that I

0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.560
<v Speaker 3>have to emphasize, is the way that she is so

0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:03.360
<v Speaker 3>flawlessly threatening in a subtle way. There's like a subtext

0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:07.280
<v Speaker 3>of threat in the way that she is overtly passive.

0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.040
<v Speaker 3>She will make a little kind of plea or a bid,

0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:13.359
<v Speaker 3>so she says multiple times to a character be nice

0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:16.399
<v Speaker 3>to me, or says like please about something, in a

0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.880
<v Speaker 3>way that has this kind of like undercurrent of violence

0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:21.760
<v Speaker 3>running through it.

0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:25.600
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, absolutely, all right. So we'll have more to

0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:28.720
<v Speaker 2>say about this performance as we roll on through the episode.

0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:31.119
<v Speaker 2>But you can't have a vampire without a vampire thrall,

0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:33.840
<v Speaker 2>and the Countess's thrall is in the form of Ilona,

0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:38.760
<v Speaker 2>played by Andrea Rau born nineteen forty seven, German actress

0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:44.000
<v Speaker 2>and former ballerina and model. Prior to this, she'd mostly

0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:47.160
<v Speaker 2>acted I believe in comedies and some like sexy comedies

0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.199
<v Speaker 2>in Germany. But this was one of a couple of

0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:52.720
<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy one films that saw her branch out into

0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:57.520
<v Speaker 2>more serious work. Subsequent films included nineteen seventy fives than Net.

0:24:57.680 --> 0:24:59.760
<v Speaker 2>We not the one with Sandra Bolla. No, No, this

0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:03.440
<v Speaker 2>is woman had clothskin skin. It's so different net. I

0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.440
<v Speaker 2>think it's metaphorical. I don't think it involves the Internet

0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:11.160
<v Speaker 2>or an actual rope. Net a couple of notes from

0:25:11.600 --> 0:25:14.119
<v Speaker 2>interviews that I watched with her. She points out that

0:25:14.200 --> 0:25:16.000
<v Speaker 2>she ended up really liking her hair, so she kept

0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:18.480
<v Speaker 2>his hairstyle pretty you know, has kept it for the

0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:20.080
<v Speaker 2>rest of her life. It's kind of a.

0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.600
<v Speaker 3>Strange haircut, but it looks cool. It's like it's like

0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:25.000
<v Speaker 3>a sloped bob. I don't know what you call that.

0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:29.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And her performance here is very physical, and I

0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:33.679
<v Speaker 2>can see where her dance background probably became useful, you know.

0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.480
<v Speaker 2>But at the same time, she was one of the

0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:39.360
<v Speaker 2>greener performers here, and so there's kind of an awkwardness

0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:42.240
<v Speaker 2>to her performance, but I don't know, I feel like

0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:44.639
<v Speaker 2>it kind of works well because this is kind of

0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:48.480
<v Speaker 2>a I mean, she's a vampire's thrall, She's in a

0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:51.480
<v Speaker 2>very unnatural place in her life, and therefore I feel

0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:54.439
<v Speaker 2>like a certain amount of the unnatural to the performance

0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:55.439
<v Speaker 2>is fitting.

0:25:55.640 --> 0:26:00.240
<v Speaker 3>She's a very sad and pitiable character, especially not just

0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:04.159
<v Speaker 3>in the fact that she is enslaved to a vampire queen,

0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:07.920
<v Speaker 3>but that the vampire queen insists on kind of treating

0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:11.720
<v Speaker 3>her like a little friend. Yeah, the way that that

0:26:11.800 --> 0:26:15.960
<v Speaker 3>makes it so much more cruel and the and so

0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:19.720
<v Speaker 3>in these little moments where she has she has these

0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:23.320
<v Speaker 3>great moments of a posture in her performance that like

0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:27.199
<v Speaker 3>diminish her in various ways and render her more pitiable.

0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:30.040
<v Speaker 3>Like there's a way that she kind of hugs up

0:26:30.080 --> 0:26:33.280
<v Speaker 3>against walls and furniture the way like a kid does

0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:34.280
<v Speaker 3>when they're ashamed.

0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:37.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, I think she mentioned that the director told

0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:39.719
<v Speaker 2>her to be a spider in some of these scenes,

0:26:39.760 --> 0:26:41.879
<v Speaker 2>and so she's trying to be kind of like spidery,

0:26:41.960 --> 0:26:44.399
<v Speaker 2>clinging to the walls and all. Oh yeah, yeah, I

0:26:44.400 --> 0:26:44.800
<v Speaker 2>can see that.

0:26:44.920 --> 0:26:47.199
<v Speaker 3>But also she's quite scary in one moment where she

0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:50.040
<v Speaker 3>like surprises Valerie out on the balcony. We just see

0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:52.359
<v Speaker 3>like a flash of her, and she's like she's like

0:26:52.480 --> 0:26:55.600
<v Speaker 3>naked with her arms raised almost like a like vampire

0:26:55.840 --> 0:26:58.919
<v Speaker 3>kind of claw hands, but also like a ballet pose.

0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:01.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, and also I don't know, it feels like

0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:05.080
<v Speaker 2>it's something out of like a silent German expressionist film

0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:10.639
<v Speaker 2>as well. It has that kind of severity to it. Yeah.

0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:13.439
<v Speaker 2>All right, so those are that's our vampire queen and

0:27:13.560 --> 0:27:16.080
<v Speaker 2>her vampiric thrall. But we also have to have our

0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:20.960
<v Speaker 2>doomed honeymoon couple, and so let's get into them a

0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:21.320
<v Speaker 2>bit here.

0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:24.320
<v Speaker 3>They've got their own issues before the vampire even gets there.

0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:27.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, as others have pointed out, like even if the

0:27:27.080 --> 0:27:29.600
<v Speaker 2>vampires never showed up, this was not going to end

0:27:29.640 --> 0:27:32.040
<v Speaker 2>well and it could have easily still been a very

0:27:32.119 --> 0:27:35.080
<v Speaker 2>dramatic horror picture in its own right.

0:27:35.440 --> 0:27:37.960
<v Speaker 3>Okay, but this couple is Valerie and Stephan.

0:27:38.359 --> 0:27:41.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's start with Valorie. Valerie is played by Danielle

0:27:41.960 --> 0:27:46.120
<v Speaker 2>we Met born nineteen forty seven, Canadian actress who got

0:27:46.119 --> 0:27:48.920
<v Speaker 2>her start in a pair of notable Canadian erotic films

0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:51.920
<v Speaker 2>from sixty nine and seventy, and then she also did

0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:56.000
<v Speaker 2>some mainstream television work in Quebec before filming this, which

0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:58.720
<v Speaker 2>I believe it turned out to be her most iconic role.

0:27:59.480 --> 0:28:01.639
<v Speaker 2>She continued to work through the nineteen seventies and then

0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:04.800
<v Speaker 2>return to acting in the early two thousands. Other credits

0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:08.120
<v Speaker 2>of note include nineteen seventy two's The Possession of Virginia.

0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:11.959
<v Speaker 2>Never seen it. This is, I think for the only

0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:14.720
<v Speaker 2>thing I've seen her in. She's done a lot of

0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.199
<v Speaker 2>interviews over the years and has spoken very highly of

0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:19.760
<v Speaker 2>the film itself and certainly of her work with Sarreg,

0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:24.639
<v Speaker 2>But I believe her onset relationship with the director was

0:28:24.680 --> 0:28:28.080
<v Speaker 2>not great. Her performance here is certainly greener. I mean,

0:28:28.280 --> 0:28:30.800
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's unfair to even compare to someone like Sarreg,

0:28:30.840 --> 0:28:34.680
<v Speaker 2>who was a seasoned actress of the stage and the screen.

0:28:35.840 --> 0:28:38.600
<v Speaker 2>But again, I think it ends up largely working here,

0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:40.880
<v Speaker 2>because it ends up we end up with this. There's

0:28:40.920 --> 0:28:44.520
<v Speaker 2>a strong sense of naivety about Valerie. You know, she

0:28:44.720 --> 0:28:48.360
<v Speaker 2>is being controlled and manipulated to varying degrees by two

0:28:48.440 --> 0:28:52.120
<v Speaker 2>different characters in the picture before you know, arguably truly

0:28:52.160 --> 0:28:53.040
<v Speaker 2>coming into her own.

0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:57.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think I alluded to this earlier in our intro,

0:28:57.160 --> 0:29:00.200
<v Speaker 3>but the movie is to a large extent about sort

0:29:00.200 --> 0:29:06.800
<v Speaker 3>of different pathological ways that anxiety can present in romantic relationships.

0:29:06.880 --> 0:29:10.240
<v Speaker 3>And so the character we're about to talk about in

0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:12.479
<v Speaker 3>a minute, Stephan, like he has a kind of like

0:29:12.680 --> 0:29:17.240
<v Speaker 3>externalizing anxiety which turns into violence and rage and fascination

0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:24.720
<v Speaker 3>with violence and all that. Meanwhile, Valerie's anxiety manifests as

0:29:24.840 --> 0:29:29.640
<v Speaker 3>a kind of passivity and insecurity that like she she's

0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:33.600
<v Speaker 3>always like trying to reconnect with the man that she

0:29:33.720 --> 0:29:38.160
<v Speaker 3>loves and trying to find ways of making the connection stronger,

0:29:38.560 --> 0:29:41.000
<v Speaker 3>even as he gives her just more and more reason

0:29:41.120 --> 0:29:43.840
<v Speaker 3>to doubt that he's really worthy of her at all.

0:29:44.080 --> 0:29:46.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I mean I think as viewers are, like,

0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:48.600
<v Speaker 2>we're watching this, who we're saying, girl, you need to

0:29:48.600 --> 0:29:50.320
<v Speaker 2>get out of this relationship. You've known a guy like

0:29:50.320 --> 0:29:52.520
<v Speaker 2>two days, I don't think you should have married him.

0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:56.560
<v Speaker 2>But but no, you're absolutely correct.

0:29:57.160 --> 0:29:59.680
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the red flags really stack up with Stefan. But

0:29:59.720 --> 0:30:02.920
<v Speaker 3>the the way Valerie comes through I think is quite real.

0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:06.320
<v Speaker 3>I Mean, this is a way sometimes people can deal

0:30:06.360 --> 0:30:09.800
<v Speaker 3>with stress and anxiety and relationships is just is to

0:30:09.840 --> 0:30:15.120
<v Speaker 3>be increasingly kind of placating and increasingly trying to make

0:30:15.160 --> 0:30:17.400
<v Speaker 3>amends when it wasn't your fault to begin with.

0:30:18.240 --> 0:30:22.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Yeah, Now playing Stephan, we have John Carlin who

0:30:22.520 --> 0:30:26.480
<v Speaker 2>lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty American actor best

0:30:26.560 --> 0:30:30.680
<v Speaker 2>known for his American TV roles. He played Harvey Lacy

0:30:30.720 --> 0:30:33.000
<v Speaker 2>on Cagney and Lacy in the nineteen eighties. That would

0:30:33.000 --> 0:30:37.560
<v Speaker 2>be the husband of one of the title characters. Not

0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:41.200
<v Speaker 2>a show I ever watched, but I believe it was

0:30:41.520 --> 0:30:44.400
<v Speaker 2>a big hit during its day, and he also played

0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:47.360
<v Speaker 2>a number of different roles on Dark Shadows. I think

0:30:47.440 --> 0:30:50.520
<v Speaker 2>initially and mainly a character named Willie Loomis, who I

0:30:50.520 --> 0:30:52.600
<v Speaker 2>think is kind of like a con man who is

0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:57.080
<v Speaker 2>involved with accidentally bringing or maybe intentionally bringing Barnabas Collins

0:30:57.120 --> 0:31:00.320
<v Speaker 2>back from the grave, Barnabas Collins being a vampire. If

0:31:00.360 --> 0:31:02.120
<v Speaker 2>anyone out there is not aware, I don't know what

0:31:02.160 --> 0:31:05.000
<v Speaker 2>you're talking about, Oh, Barnabas Collins. I mean, I mean

0:31:05.080 --> 0:31:07.760
<v Speaker 2>I watched maybe one or two episodes of Dark Shadows

0:31:08.240 --> 0:31:10.200
<v Speaker 2>back in the day when it was aired on like

0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:14.040
<v Speaker 2>Sci Fi Channel, But you know, Gothic horror as a

0:31:14.080 --> 0:31:17.200
<v Speaker 2>soap opera as a concept, I'm totally on board with that.

0:31:17.320 --> 0:31:19.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm here for that. I've never seen it though.

0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:21.400
<v Speaker 2>They did a couple of movies and he's in those

0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:23.320
<v Speaker 2>as well, So maybe we can come back to some

0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:27.760
<v Speaker 2>Barnabas Collins in the future. Okay. Carlin also did a

0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:30.760
<v Speaker 2>number of other TV credits going back to the late

0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:33.760
<v Speaker 2>nineteen fifties. He pops up on Night Gallery, He's in

0:31:33.880 --> 0:31:37.840
<v Speaker 2>seventy five's Trilogy of Terror, He's in Super Train and

0:31:37.960 --> 0:31:41.080
<v Speaker 2>then later Matt about You Murder, she wrote. He was

0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:43.680
<v Speaker 2>also in the nineteen ninety three movie Surf Ninjas.

0:31:45.680 --> 0:31:47.480
<v Speaker 3>Now it's easy to confuse that with a couple of

0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:52.400
<v Speaker 3>other things. Yeah, Surf Ninjas is neither Surf Nazis Must Die,

0:31:52.840 --> 0:31:56.280
<v Speaker 3>nor is it the Three Ninjas of the nineties is

0:31:56.440 --> 0:31:57.320
<v Speaker 3>a separate thing.

0:31:57.400 --> 0:31:59.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I don't think there's a shared universe here.

0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:04.040
<v Speaker 2>I checked out a couple of interviews with him as

0:32:04.040 --> 0:32:07.000
<v Speaker 2>well part of his commentary track, and like everyone else,

0:32:07.040 --> 0:32:10.120
<v Speaker 2>had nothing but praise for Sarah had a lot of

0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:11.960
<v Speaker 2>great things to say about the finished product of the

0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:14.920
<v Speaker 2>film and various interesting stories about its production, though he

0:32:14.960 --> 0:32:17.160
<v Speaker 2>does point out that like he did, have to deal

0:32:17.160 --> 0:32:21.280
<v Speaker 2>with the fact that the director was obviously disappointed that

0:32:21.360 --> 0:32:24.640
<v Speaker 2>he was older than he looked in his head shots.

0:32:25.800 --> 0:32:27.479
<v Speaker 2>And this is something I didn't even think about, but

0:32:27.560 --> 0:32:29.200
<v Speaker 2>like he's I think the character is supposed to be

0:32:29.280 --> 0:32:32.120
<v Speaker 2>in his twenties and the actor was in his late thirties.

0:32:32.560 --> 0:32:36.960
<v Speaker 2>Really yeah, Oh, and so there was some tension there,

0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:39.040
<v Speaker 2>at least initially where the directors like, they sent me

0:32:39.080 --> 0:32:41.760
<v Speaker 2>this older guy, and he's too old for the part.

0:32:41.840 --> 0:32:45.440
<v Speaker 2>But I don't know. I'd always felt it seemed to

0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:48.080
<v Speaker 2>work for me as a viewer, So I don't know

0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:49.400
<v Speaker 2>that there was really an issue here.

0:32:49.680 --> 0:32:53.720
<v Speaker 3>That's interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't I would not have complained

0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:56.160
<v Speaker 3>about this about the movie, But now that you say it,

0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:58.959
<v Speaker 3>he does look a bit older than the part seems

0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:02.920
<v Speaker 3>to be written. It has written as like a role

0:33:03.080 --> 0:33:07.480
<v Speaker 3>for a young man I'm imagining like that Stephan is

0:33:07.480 --> 0:33:10.240
<v Speaker 3>supposed to be I don't know, twenty three or so,

0:33:10.480 --> 0:33:12.760
<v Speaker 3>but yeah, he is a good bit older than that.

0:33:12.960 --> 0:33:16.000
<v Speaker 3>But I wouldn't have I don't know if I would

0:33:16.000 --> 0:33:18.200
<v Speaker 3>have called that out without knowing that fact.

0:33:18.480 --> 0:33:22.040
<v Speaker 2>I mean, part of it is that films do tend

0:33:22.080 --> 0:33:25.960
<v Speaker 2>to condition us to not question the male in a

0:33:26.200 --> 0:33:30.880
<v Speaker 2>relate on screen relationship. Being significantly older than a female counterpart.

0:33:31.600 --> 0:33:34.600
<v Speaker 2>But also we'll get into some of the details we

0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:37.280
<v Speaker 2>learn about Stephan, and I don't know, it felt kind

0:33:37.280 --> 0:33:40.800
<v Speaker 2>of in keeping that maybe he was a little older,

0:33:41.280 --> 0:33:44.280
<v Speaker 2>you know, while sort of being locked into this younger

0:33:44.320 --> 0:33:48.400
<v Speaker 2>phase of life, you know, like he's he's older than

0:33:48.440 --> 0:33:51.040
<v Speaker 2>someone should be to suddenly go off and marry somebody

0:33:51.080 --> 0:33:52.640
<v Speaker 2>on the fly that's sort on vacation.

0:33:52.880 --> 0:33:56.520
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but now that you mentioned that it was written younger,

0:33:56.600 --> 0:33:59.080
<v Speaker 3>yeat would make sense if Stephan was supposed to be

0:33:59.160 --> 0:34:02.440
<v Speaker 3>like a guy in his early twenties who's traveling continental Europe.

0:34:02.440 --> 0:34:04.920
<v Speaker 3>He's a young, rich guy who's just out on holiday.

0:34:05.200 --> 0:34:08.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, So yeah, we'll get into more about this character.

0:34:08.800 --> 0:34:11.000
<v Speaker 2>But on the whole, I really liked his performance. I

0:34:11.040 --> 0:34:14.279
<v Speaker 2>thought it's pretty strong here there could because again, this

0:34:14.360 --> 0:34:17.919
<v Speaker 2>is not just your typical, oh, honeymooning couple, but they're

0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:21.320
<v Speaker 2>doomed because of some external force. They're like double doomed

0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:25.239
<v Speaker 2>the external force, but also a lot of a lot

0:34:25.239 --> 0:34:28.200
<v Speaker 2>of red flags in the relationship and some you know,

0:34:28.560 --> 0:34:32.759
<v Speaker 2>some some deep trauma and an anxiety that's going on

0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:35.320
<v Speaker 2>in both of them. So those are all the beautiful

0:34:35.320 --> 0:34:37.640
<v Speaker 2>people in the picture. Do you want to mention just

0:34:37.760 --> 0:34:40.839
<v Speaker 2>there aren't very many humans in this, not counting some

0:34:40.880 --> 0:34:43.560
<v Speaker 2>of the like extras in the background. But there's a

0:34:43.600 --> 0:34:47.160
<v Speaker 2>hotel clerk at the hotel, the po Yeah, and he

0:34:47.239 --> 0:34:50.759
<v Speaker 2>is played by Paul Esser, who lived nineteen thirteen through

0:34:50.840 --> 0:34:54.000
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty eight, German actor of stage and screen, who

0:34:54.040 --> 0:34:57.160
<v Speaker 2>also acted in the original Swedish West German Pippy long

0:34:57.200 --> 0:35:00.759
<v Speaker 2>Stalking TV series. I've not seen. I feel like the

0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:04.800
<v Speaker 2>Pippy long Stocking I can I consumed was maybe like

0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:08.160
<v Speaker 2>like later work, like the US of British production. But

0:35:08.920 --> 0:35:11.520
<v Speaker 2>it's been a long time since I've watched any Pippy

0:35:11.520 --> 0:35:14.560
<v Speaker 2>long Stocking. Same here. I don't know the provenance of

0:35:14.600 --> 0:35:19.359
<v Speaker 2>my Pippy. According to the director on this picture, he's

0:35:19.360 --> 0:35:21.719
<v Speaker 2>supposed to play, you know, an old man who's been

0:35:21.719 --> 0:35:24.719
<v Speaker 2>at the hotel for a long time, and Harry asked

0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:27.359
<v Speaker 2>him to if he would wear gray hair for it,

0:35:27.400 --> 0:35:30.960
<v Speaker 2>and he like flatly refused, perhaps out of vanity. I

0:35:30.960 --> 0:35:34.200
<v Speaker 2>don't know that he insisted no, I will play gray,

0:35:34.800 --> 0:35:38.800
<v Speaker 2>and he does. He plays old and tired very well. Yeah.

0:35:38.880 --> 0:35:44.080
<v Speaker 2>There's also a retired policeman who shows up and this

0:35:43.680 --> 0:35:45.759
<v Speaker 2>is this is a Belgian actor by the name of

0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:49.560
<v Speaker 2>George Gemmen who lived nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy one.

0:35:49.800 --> 0:35:54.080
<v Speaker 2>It's a minor part, but nice, very sweaty monologue. As

0:35:54.120 --> 0:35:57.120
<v Speaker 2>I recall, he's supposed to be soaked with rain. Oh yeah,

0:35:57.120 --> 0:35:59.040
<v Speaker 2>it's supposed to be rain. But he looks sweaty.

0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:04.680
<v Speaker 3>He's over say rig with just like wetness pouring down

0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:05.160
<v Speaker 3>his face.

0:36:05.200 --> 0:36:07.440
<v Speaker 2>It looks gross. But he is supposed to have come

0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:10.280
<v Speaker 2>out of the rain. Yeah, a retired policeman who's still

0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:13.839
<v Speaker 2>working cases in a kind of unsavory way.

0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:17.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and then he has a really ignominious end in

0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:18.320
<v Speaker 3>the film.

0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:22.319
<v Speaker 2>We'll explain that later. All right. The director of photography

0:36:22.320 --> 0:36:24.080
<v Speaker 2>on this, because I mean, the look at the picture

0:36:24.120 --> 0:36:26.200
<v Speaker 2>is so great we have to call him out. Edward

0:36:26.280 --> 0:36:29.680
<v Speaker 2>van der Enden who lived nineteen twenty eight through twenty eleven.

0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:33.960
<v Speaker 2>Dutch cinematographer whose other other credits include Lifespan and nineteen

0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:38.000
<v Speaker 2>eighty two's Fake Out. He also worked in some capacity

0:36:38.040 --> 0:36:42.359
<v Speaker 2>on nineteen ninety three's Gettysburg I believe, credited with additional photography.

0:36:43.480 --> 0:36:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh and we don't always mention costuming, but Bernard Paris

0:36:48.160 --> 0:36:51.359
<v Speaker 2>is called out, who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty ten.

0:36:52.160 --> 0:36:57.200
<v Speaker 2>His credit is costumer Miss Syrih's gowns. Again, the gowns

0:36:57.200 --> 0:37:00.920
<v Speaker 2>in this picture are amazing, each more style eye catching

0:37:00.920 --> 0:37:04.800
<v Speaker 2>them the last until you were almost literally blinded by them.

0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:08.040
<v Speaker 2>Paris was apparently a notable name in French fashion back

0:37:08.040 --> 0:37:11.840
<v Speaker 2>in the day. And then finally, the music. The music

0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:16.120
<v Speaker 2>here was by composer of Francois de Robai, who lived

0:37:16.160 --> 0:37:20.680
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirty nine through nineteen seventy five. French musician and composer.

0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:23.600
<v Speaker 2>Really splendid score on this one that is fortunately widely

0:37:23.600 --> 0:37:28.680
<v Speaker 2>available on digital and physical formats, including I learned a

0:37:28.800 --> 0:37:32.719
<v Speaker 2>vinyl edition that came out via Music on Vinyl. They

0:37:32.719 --> 0:37:36.120
<v Speaker 2>put out only six hundred and sixty six copies, so

0:37:36.840 --> 0:37:41.000
<v Speaker 2>you know that's fun. But anyway, it's a bleak, eerie

0:37:41.120 --> 0:37:46.719
<v Speaker 2>score that resonates with like antique European flair, like a

0:37:46.760 --> 0:37:50.920
<v Speaker 2>little bit of folk music, seventies weirdness, elements of jazz

0:37:50.960 --> 0:37:54.960
<v Speaker 2>and synthesizer, just amazing stuff. I was listening to this

0:37:55.000 --> 0:37:57.240
<v Speaker 2>one on its own a bit while working on notes.

0:37:57.960 --> 0:38:02.399
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, a good score and it the music incorporates the

0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:04.359
<v Speaker 3>themes like it sounds like.

0:38:06.239 --> 0:38:06.879
<v Speaker 2>Luxury.

0:38:07.040 --> 0:38:10.480
<v Speaker 3>It sounds like the idol rich and it sounds like danger.

0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:14.399
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, but it's like, yeah, it's like the it's

0:38:14.480 --> 0:38:18.360
<v Speaker 2>like the decadence on top, but turning the sludge underneath,

0:38:18.440 --> 0:38:21.799
<v Speaker 2>turning into like melting into unsavory sludge at like the

0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:26.200
<v Speaker 2>base level. Yeah. Yeah, so great work. This guy died

0:38:26.239 --> 0:38:29.839
<v Speaker 2>way too young, but his work is notable for its

0:38:29.840 --> 0:38:32.880
<v Speaker 2>synthesis of jazz, synth and folk elements. And I was

0:38:32.920 --> 0:38:35.080
<v Speaker 2>reading that he's sometimes held up as a forerunner of

0:38:35.120 --> 0:38:39.879
<v Speaker 2>French electronic music. And the score was apparently sampled by

0:38:39.880 --> 0:38:44.239
<v Speaker 2>Lil Wayne on a track called President Carter. I haven't

0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:47.839
<v Speaker 2>listened to any of Lil Wayne's music that I know of,

0:38:47.960 --> 0:39:00.400
<v Speaker 2>but you know, I always appreciate a good sample. All right,

0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:02.520
<v Speaker 2>You ready to talk about the plot? Yeah, let's get

0:39:02.520 --> 0:39:02.880
<v Speaker 2>into it.

0:39:03.320 --> 0:39:07.120
<v Speaker 3>So the action opens on a landscape after sunset, with

0:39:07.360 --> 0:39:10.879
<v Speaker 3>a deep blue twilight sky and a black tree limb

0:39:10.960 --> 0:39:13.680
<v Speaker 3>hanging in the foreground, and we can hear dogs barking

0:39:14.040 --> 0:39:16.799
<v Speaker 3>and a train approaching in the distance, and then the

0:39:16.840 --> 0:39:19.960
<v Speaker 3>train overtakes the camera and it becomes very loud as

0:39:19.960 --> 0:39:23.279
<v Speaker 3>it passes by. We cut inside the train to a

0:39:23.320 --> 0:39:27.440
<v Speaker 3>private passenger compartment where we see close ups of objects

0:39:27.520 --> 0:39:31.239
<v Speaker 3>that set the scene. You've got white flowers with drooping petals,

0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:36.200
<v Speaker 3>cream colored silk sheets, champagne flutes half full and no

0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:40.040
<v Speaker 3>longer bubbling. You got the champagne bottle dunked in a

0:39:40.040 --> 0:39:43.399
<v Speaker 3>silver ice bucket, a white leather purse spathed in red

0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:46.120
<v Speaker 3>light from the window, and then kind of some lace

0:39:46.200 --> 0:39:49.360
<v Speaker 3>garments heaped on the floor, so you get an idea

0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:51.880
<v Speaker 3>of the room. We can hear the train rattling on

0:39:51.960 --> 0:39:55.080
<v Speaker 3>the tracks, and the wine glasses clinking against one another

0:39:55.560 --> 0:39:55.879
<v Speaker 3>on a.

0:39:55.880 --> 0:39:59.919
<v Speaker 2>Table beside the bed. We hear a woman's voice say Sta,

0:40:00.920 --> 0:40:04.280
<v Speaker 2>and a man's voice say Valerie.

0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:08.120
<v Speaker 3>So here are our main characters, Stephan and Valerie. They

0:40:08.120 --> 0:40:11.000
<v Speaker 3>are newlyweds. They're here on their honeymoon. I think about

0:40:11.000 --> 0:40:14.240
<v Speaker 3>three hours after they got married, they say, and they're

0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:17.880
<v Speaker 3>having sex in the dark in their train compartment. And

0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:20.400
<v Speaker 3>I would say a combination of kind of the sharp

0:40:20.480 --> 0:40:25.520
<v Speaker 3>and ominous music and some staging in the sex scene

0:40:25.719 --> 0:40:28.600
<v Speaker 3>immediately makes Stephan maybe come off as a little bit

0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:30.640
<v Speaker 3>aggressive and perhaps dangerous.

0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:34.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's kind of a firal, almost loopine quality to

0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:35.040
<v Speaker 2>him here.

0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:39.239
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, now there's some interesting things about the colors in

0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:42.680
<v Speaker 3>the scene, Rob, I don't know if you know what

0:40:42.719 --> 0:40:44.440
<v Speaker 3>I'm talking about. A few times in the movie, I

0:40:44.440 --> 0:40:47.440
<v Speaker 3>would say, especially here in the train car, the air

0:40:47.680 --> 0:40:52.560
<v Speaker 3>somehow feels purple, not smoky. Sometimes air looks purple if

0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.520
<v Speaker 3>they're smoking, it doesn't look like there's any smoke. It's

0:40:55.560 --> 0:40:59.719
<v Speaker 3>like the air is thick with purpleness itself, and the

0:40:59.719 --> 0:41:03.120
<v Speaker 3>purple coolness kind of envelops the naked bodies of Stepan

0:41:03.200 --> 0:41:04.080
<v Speaker 3>and Valerie here.

0:41:04.680 --> 0:41:06.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it almost gives it a kind of I don't know,

0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.040
<v Speaker 2>it feels more voyeuristic in a way, like I'm somehow

0:41:09.120 --> 0:41:12.040
<v Speaker 2>like seeing things through some sort of a purple limbs,

0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:16.120
<v Speaker 2>you know, I don't know, Like, yeah, it's it's it's

0:41:16.120 --> 0:41:18.640
<v Speaker 2>an interesting color choice for this sequence.

0:41:18.920 --> 0:41:20.600
<v Speaker 3>But at the same time, a lot of the little

0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:23.479
<v Speaker 3>items we see, like on the table beside the bed here,

0:41:23.680 --> 0:41:27.200
<v Speaker 3>have these color themes of white, gold, and pink that

0:41:27.239 --> 0:41:29.800
<v Speaker 3>are kind of associated with Valerie throughout the movie.

0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:32.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, and I think some of these are, like

0:41:32.160 --> 0:41:34.760
<v Speaker 2>they're flowers and so forth here. Yeah.

0:41:35.000 --> 0:41:38.080
<v Speaker 3>Now, later we see Stephan and Valerie lying in bed,

0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:41.759
<v Speaker 3>half asleep, and their first dialogue exchange apart from saying

0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:42.600
<v Speaker 3>each other's names.

0:41:42.640 --> 0:41:43.200
<v Speaker 2>Goes like this.

0:41:43.840 --> 0:41:48.080
<v Speaker 3>Valerie says, Stephan, tell me, do you love me? And

0:41:48.160 --> 0:41:51.400
<v Speaker 3>he kind of lazily mumbles, don't you know? But she

0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:53.840
<v Speaker 3>pleads with him to say it, and he takes a moment,

0:41:53.920 --> 0:41:57.520
<v Speaker 3>and then he says no. Then he asks her do

0:41:57.560 --> 0:42:01.440
<v Speaker 3>you love me? And she says, in a more playful tone,

0:42:01.600 --> 0:42:05.280
<v Speaker 3>what me? Of course I don't. And then Stephan says,

0:42:05.280 --> 0:42:07.480
<v Speaker 3>that's good, you don't love me. I don't love you.

0:42:07.760 --> 0:42:10.960
<v Speaker 3>We were made for each other. And I think this

0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:16.040
<v Speaker 3>is such an interesting, complex little moment, especially given what

0:42:16.080 --> 0:42:19.880
<v Speaker 3>we learn about the characters as the story progresses, we

0:42:19.920 --> 0:42:23.960
<v Speaker 3>get a little glimpse here of this subsurface drama about

0:42:24.080 --> 0:42:28.160
<v Speaker 3>power and dominance between them. And what I mean by

0:42:28.200 --> 0:42:31.919
<v Speaker 3>that is when she says she doesn't love him, it's

0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.400
<v Speaker 3>clear in her voice that she's just joking, like she

0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:36.640
<v Speaker 3>says it in a kind of sing songy voice, like

0:42:36.880 --> 0:42:40.600
<v Speaker 3>she's playing around. But is he only joking when he

0:42:40.640 --> 0:42:44.480
<v Speaker 3>says he doesn't love her? I'm not sure. And Valerie

0:42:44.560 --> 0:42:47.200
<v Speaker 3>does not laugh or even smile when he says no,

0:42:47.360 --> 0:42:51.319
<v Speaker 3>he doesn't love her. Her expression is totally blank. It

0:42:51.360 --> 0:42:54.880
<v Speaker 3>feels to me, especially watching it the second time, like

0:42:55.000 --> 0:42:59.600
<v Speaker 3>he might be denying he loves her. Maybe not because

0:42:59.640 --> 0:43:02.440
<v Speaker 3>he doesn't love her. I'm not sure what it means

0:43:02.440 --> 0:43:05.239
<v Speaker 3>for him to love her, but denying he loves her

0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:10.439
<v Speaker 3>as an expression of subtle sadism hidden behind a mask

0:43:10.520 --> 0:43:13.839
<v Speaker 3>of irony, Like he says it in part to undermine

0:43:13.840 --> 0:43:18.560
<v Speaker 3>her confidence and to make himself feel powerful. But of

0:43:18.560 --> 0:43:21.560
<v Speaker 3>course it's plausible that he's just kidding. She says it back,

0:43:21.560 --> 0:43:24.600
<v Speaker 3>and she's obviously kidding, and he could retreat to that

0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:28.560
<v Speaker 3>explanation if pressed on it. And then this even greater

0:43:28.719 --> 0:43:32.839
<v Speaker 3>feeling of dominance seems to accrue to him because Valerie's

0:43:32.840 --> 0:43:36.040
<v Speaker 3>anxiety forces her to interpret it as a joke and

0:43:36.120 --> 0:43:39.320
<v Speaker 3>respond in kind, like she doesn't have the confidence to

0:43:39.400 --> 0:43:41.840
<v Speaker 3>kind of get serious and press him on what he means.

0:43:42.600 --> 0:43:45.000
<v Speaker 3>And yet this is all while they're in this dreamy,

0:43:45.480 --> 0:43:49.399
<v Speaker 3>half awake, blissful state, very weird mood. And I think

0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:52.560
<v Speaker 3>this is illustrative of the kind of psychological drama that

0:43:52.600 --> 0:43:56.240
<v Speaker 3>continues throughout the movie that you can kind of zero

0:43:56.360 --> 0:43:59.880
<v Speaker 3>in on these little exchanges like this and then in

0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:01.520
<v Speaker 3>up reading a lot into them.

0:44:02.080 --> 0:44:04.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, especially on second viewing. This is also I

0:44:04.960 --> 0:44:08.080
<v Speaker 2>went back and rewatched this part of the film as well,

0:44:08.520 --> 0:44:11.279
<v Speaker 2>and yeah, I think at the first time through, I

0:44:11.360 --> 0:44:13.239
<v Speaker 2>was more sort of like, I wasn't sure that this

0:44:13.400 --> 0:44:15.480
<v Speaker 2>was going to be a film where this stuff mattered,

0:44:15.920 --> 0:44:20.160
<v Speaker 2>because the doomed couple on a honeymoon is so much

0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:25.279
<v Speaker 2>a cliche in the horror genre. I wasn't really sure

0:44:25.280 --> 0:44:28.560
<v Speaker 2>that their relationship mattered in a meaningful sense. But it is,

0:44:29.520 --> 0:44:31.400
<v Speaker 2>you know, it is very central to the plot of

0:44:31.400 --> 0:44:34.880
<v Speaker 2>the film. Like it it's not just window dressing for

0:44:35.080 --> 0:44:38.200
<v Speaker 2>the horrors to come, it is. It is interwoven with

0:44:38.239 --> 0:44:39.720
<v Speaker 2>the hors to come. Yeah.

0:44:39.800 --> 0:44:44.440
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Anyway, the train stops unexpectedly while they're here in

0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:48.080
<v Speaker 3>the compartment, and they haven't gone far. They say they

0:44:48.080 --> 0:44:50.520
<v Speaker 3>are only a few hours from their departure in Switzerland,

0:44:50.920 --> 0:44:53.360
<v Speaker 3>and Stefan gets up to go find out what's happening.

0:44:53.520 --> 0:44:53.640
<v Speaker 2>Now.

0:44:53.640 --> 0:44:57.000
<v Speaker 3>When he flips on the light, we suddenly exit the

0:44:57.000 --> 0:44:59.840
<v Speaker 3>purple twilight world and we come into the world of

0:45:00.040 --> 0:45:03.319
<v Speaker 3>harsh electric light. And when the light comes on, we

0:45:03.360 --> 0:45:07.000
<v Speaker 3>see Valerie physically recoil like when it falls over her,

0:45:07.040 --> 0:45:10.880
<v Speaker 3>which I thought was nice because nobody's a vampire yet.

0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:13.719
<v Speaker 3>But she does she almost kind of hisses. You know,

0:45:13.800 --> 0:45:17.680
<v Speaker 3>she like puts her hand up to shield herself, like ah.

0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:21.200
<v Speaker 3>But Stepan Stephan takes a look outside the train window

0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:25.840
<v Speaker 3>and he sees a flat, muddy field lined with skeletal

0:45:25.920 --> 0:45:29.560
<v Speaker 3>trees and half melted drifts of snow.

0:45:29.760 --> 0:45:30.080
<v Speaker 2>Uh.

0:45:30.120 --> 0:45:33.360
<v Speaker 3>And this might be another good place. We alluded to

0:45:33.400 --> 0:45:36.520
<v Speaker 3>this earlier, but I just want to emphasize again that

0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:41.880
<v Speaker 3>the exterior landscape shots in this movie are generally not beautiful.

0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:47.640
<v Speaker 3>They are bleak, cold, dark, unlovely, drained of color.

0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:48.480
<v Speaker 2>Uh.

0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:52.640
<v Speaker 3>And that's interesting because Daughters of Darkness is not a

0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:56.320
<v Speaker 3>movie unconcerned with beauty. It is highly concerned with beauty,

0:45:56.880 --> 0:46:00.160
<v Speaker 3>but not much with natural beauty. It's like beauty it

0:46:00.200 --> 0:46:04.360
<v Speaker 3>doesn't feel good the way that outdoor settings and landscapes do.

0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:07.920
<v Speaker 3>The beauty in this movie is all things that like

0:46:08.080 --> 0:46:11.640
<v Speaker 3>die and decay. It's all like human bodies, of course,

0:46:11.680 --> 0:46:14.680
<v Speaker 3>you know, they're beautiful people in the movie, but also

0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:21.319
<v Speaker 3>like decadent old world luxury items made by humans, you know,

0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:26.600
<v Speaker 3>fancy clothes and jewelry and furniture and cocktails and expensive

0:46:26.640 --> 0:46:30.759
<v Speaker 3>hotel rooms and lobbies and the outside world or the

0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:34.440
<v Speaker 3>natural world. Here is just a place of darkness and

0:46:34.640 --> 0:46:37.520
<v Speaker 3>cold wind where dead bodies are dumped.

0:46:37.960 --> 0:46:39.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:43.520
<v Speaker 3>Anyway, so Stephan he leaves the train the compartment and

0:46:43.560 --> 0:46:45.759
<v Speaker 3>he gets the scoop. He finds out that a train

0:46:45.840 --> 0:46:47.680
<v Speaker 3>has gone off the tracks up ahead and they are

0:46:47.680 --> 0:46:50.000
<v Speaker 3>stuck behind it, and this means they are going to

0:46:50.040 --> 0:46:52.240
<v Speaker 3>miss the boat that they were going to take to England,

0:46:52.320 --> 0:46:56.400
<v Speaker 3>where Stephan's family lives. And the backstory, as we gather

0:46:56.719 --> 0:47:01.160
<v Speaker 3>is that Stephan is the sun of a wealthy aristocratic family.

0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:03.680
<v Speaker 3>I think they're supposed to be Americans but living in

0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:08.200
<v Speaker 3>England there the chilterns of Chilton manor uh and that

0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:10.880
<v Speaker 3>I rob Did you interpret it the same way? That

0:47:10.920 --> 0:47:14.759
<v Speaker 3>Stephan met Valerie while traveling and they had a very

0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:17.799
<v Speaker 3>brief romance and then got married in Switzerland basically right

0:47:17.840 --> 0:47:18.520
<v Speaker 3>after they met.

0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:20.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's that's what I got here. In a way,

0:47:20.920 --> 0:47:22.520
<v Speaker 2>this is kind of like a sequel to a non

0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:24.680
<v Speaker 2>existent rom com. Yes, that's good.

0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:26.719
<v Speaker 3>Oh, you often don't get to see what happens after

0:47:26.760 --> 0:47:29.200
<v Speaker 3>the wrong, after the meat cute wears off, and then

0:47:29.239 --> 0:47:30.840
<v Speaker 3>you know, you really got to actually get to know

0:47:30.880 --> 0:47:31.279
<v Speaker 3>each other.

0:47:31.440 --> 0:47:34.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, when you really start figuring out what each other's

0:47:34.160 --> 0:47:36.719
<v Speaker 2>sense of humor is or isn't, And then the red

0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:38.080
<v Speaker 2>flags become more apparent.

0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:41.840
<v Speaker 3>Now Stephan has promised to take Valerie back to England

0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:45.640
<v Speaker 3>to meet his family, primarily his mother, whom is repeatedly

0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:48.440
<v Speaker 3>mentioned in a kind of ominous tone. But they have

0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:51.000
<v Speaker 3>missed the boat because of the delay on the rail,

0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:54.320
<v Speaker 3>and so Stephan suggests that they stay in a hotel

0:47:54.600 --> 0:47:58.080
<v Speaker 3>in Hostan, which is a coastal city in Belgium, until

0:47:58.120 --> 0:48:00.160
<v Speaker 3>they can catch another boat.

0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:03.960
<v Speaker 2>And the exterior locations that we see in certainly concerning

0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:07.279
<v Speaker 2>the hotel itself is in fact in Austin, and this

0:48:07.360 --> 0:48:11.600
<v Speaker 2>place is a legit cy side vacation destination during summer months.

0:48:12.200 --> 0:48:14.640
<v Speaker 2>The interiors of the hotel that we see, though, are

0:48:14.680 --> 0:48:16.600
<v Speaker 2>the Hotel Astoria in Brussels.

0:48:18.000 --> 0:48:22.200
<v Speaker 3>Now Here on the train, Stephan and Valerie have a conversation.

0:48:23.120 --> 0:48:27.240
<v Speaker 3>It's clear that Stephan has not yet broken the news

0:48:27.440 --> 0:48:32.200
<v Speaker 3>about Valerie to his mother, and there is an understanding

0:48:32.360 --> 0:48:35.600
<v Speaker 3>that his mother would not approve either of the speed

0:48:35.640 --> 0:48:41.440
<v Speaker 3>of their courtship or implicitly of who Valerie is. On

0:48:41.600 --> 0:48:43.920
<v Speaker 3>first watch, I was wondering, It was like, is there

0:48:43.960 --> 0:48:48.000
<v Speaker 3>something unsavory about Valerie? But I don't think so. I

0:48:48.040 --> 0:48:51.440
<v Speaker 3>think the understanding is that Stephan is rich and he's

0:48:51.440 --> 0:48:54.319
<v Speaker 3>supposed to marry some wealthy heiress or something, keep to

0:48:54.360 --> 0:48:56.800
<v Speaker 3>his class, and Valerie is just a regular person.

0:48:57.080 --> 0:48:59.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, you get the impression like that he's marrying

0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:02.720
<v Speaker 2>for fun here, and he shouldn't just be marrying based

0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.480
<v Speaker 2>on fun or love or something like that. It should

0:49:05.480 --> 0:49:07.840
<v Speaker 2>be some sort of yeah, some sort of proper connection.

0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:12.600
<v Speaker 3>Valerie is uncomfortable that Stefan's mother doesn't know about her.

0:49:12.800 --> 0:49:15.720
<v Speaker 3>She sort of gently presses him to break the news

0:49:15.760 --> 0:49:18.680
<v Speaker 3>to his mother, but Stephan keeps making excuses. You know,

0:49:18.719 --> 0:49:20.640
<v Speaker 3>it's not the right time to call. She has a

0:49:20.640 --> 0:49:23.800
<v Speaker 3>heart condition. The surprise could kill her, and it seems

0:49:23.840 --> 0:49:26.400
<v Speaker 3>like missing the boat to England was a great relief

0:49:26.480 --> 0:49:30.239
<v Speaker 3>to Stefan. Yeah, Valerie says to him, You'll have to

0:49:30.280 --> 0:49:33.480
<v Speaker 3>tell her eventually, and he says in reply, quote every

0:49:33.560 --> 0:49:37.200
<v Speaker 3>year she's been telling me, Stephan, we are different. That

0:49:37.400 --> 0:49:40.319
<v Speaker 3>is God's gift to us. We must never debase it.

0:49:41.080 --> 0:49:44.320
<v Speaker 3>The implication being that Valerie is not worthy of Stefan,

0:49:44.400 --> 0:49:47.839
<v Speaker 3>and she will she will reduce the precious metal within him,

0:49:48.040 --> 0:49:51.640
<v Speaker 3>clipping the silver, so to speak. So at the end

0:49:51.680 --> 0:49:55.080
<v Speaker 3>of the conversation, she asks Stepan if he is truly

0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:58.680
<v Speaker 3>afraid of his mother, and he seems to be genuinely

0:49:58.719 --> 0:50:01.560
<v Speaker 3>a little threatened by the accusation that he is afraid,

0:50:01.640 --> 0:50:04.320
<v Speaker 3>so he promises to call his mother on the telephone.

0:50:04.320 --> 0:50:08.000
<v Speaker 3>When they reach Ostan, the arrival here in the city

0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:10.759
<v Speaker 3>is marked by an establishing shot of the shore. I

0:50:10.800 --> 0:50:13.640
<v Speaker 3>talked about this earlier, but it's horrifyingly bleak. It's an

0:50:13.680 --> 0:50:17.040
<v Speaker 3>off season. The beach is empty, and the water washing

0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:20.680
<v Speaker 3>up on the sand is just gray on gray shadows

0:50:20.800 --> 0:50:24.480
<v Speaker 3>and beige building facades and dark window glass.

0:50:25.880 --> 0:50:28.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, frequent shots that really drive home this kind

0:50:28.560 --> 0:50:32.279
<v Speaker 2>of like low tide, off season vibe. And yeah, it

0:50:32.360 --> 0:50:34.160
<v Speaker 2>leads us to They show us enough of it, and

0:50:34.200 --> 0:50:36.359
<v Speaker 2>they show it to us frequently enough that we are

0:50:36.440 --> 0:50:39.640
<v Speaker 2>left to ruminate on the meaning of these beautiful, dreary shots,

0:50:39.719 --> 0:50:44.880
<v Speaker 2>you know, like seasonal isolation, seasonal withdrawal of life from

0:50:45.040 --> 0:50:46.359
<v Speaker 2>a region, that sort of thing.

0:50:47.680 --> 0:50:51.000
<v Speaker 3>So they arrive at their seaside luxury hotel, and so

0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:53.760
<v Speaker 3>the hotel is completely empty apart from them, and they

0:50:53.920 --> 0:50:56.399
<v Speaker 3>enter in style. They're kind of dressed like celebrities. He's

0:50:56.440 --> 0:50:59.480
<v Speaker 3>wearing this cool leather trench coat and he has the

0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:04.240
<v Speaker 3>fashion shaggy Hares nineteen seventy one and Valeries, all dressed

0:51:04.280 --> 0:51:07.279
<v Speaker 3>in white with a long coat lined with pale fur,

0:51:07.800 --> 0:51:09.920
<v Speaker 3>and her face is kind of hidden behind big movie

0:51:09.920 --> 0:51:13.239
<v Speaker 3>star sunglasses, and Stephan even picks her up to carry

0:51:13.280 --> 0:51:16.440
<v Speaker 3>her across the threshold into the lobby. This is one

0:51:16.440 --> 0:51:18.480
<v Speaker 3>of those scenes where like, the last time we saw them,

0:51:18.560 --> 0:51:20.719
<v Speaker 3>there was like there was some strain now and now

0:51:20.760 --> 0:51:22.920
<v Speaker 3>they're just like happily coming over the threshold.

0:51:23.000 --> 0:51:25.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they pushed through it somehow, but yeah, they look

0:51:25.680 --> 0:51:28.239
<v Speaker 2>quite fetching here. They're very mad, very fashionable.

0:51:28.600 --> 0:51:31.560
<v Speaker 3>At check in, we meet an interesting character, the hotel

0:51:31.600 --> 0:51:35.600
<v Speaker 3>Concierge Pierre. He is a large, soft spoken man in

0:51:35.960 --> 0:51:38.839
<v Speaker 3>late middle age. I think this is the character the

0:51:38.840 --> 0:51:42.040
<v Speaker 3>director was expecting to be somebody even older, but he's like,

0:51:42.080 --> 0:51:42.960
<v Speaker 3>I will play.

0:51:42.760 --> 0:51:44.960
<v Speaker 2>Gray, and so he does play gray.

0:51:45.200 --> 0:51:49.520
<v Speaker 3>I would say Pierre has an interesting sadness about him,

0:51:49.719 --> 0:51:52.399
<v Speaker 3>almost as if it's kind of connected to his role

0:51:52.440 --> 0:51:55.640
<v Speaker 3>here at the hotel. He sees the careless rich come

0:51:55.680 --> 0:51:58.960
<v Speaker 3>and go every season, year after year, but he's always here,

0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:01.719
<v Speaker 3>and in fact, we learned that he has worked at

0:52:01.719 --> 0:52:03.319
<v Speaker 3>the same hotel since he was a boy.

0:52:03.760 --> 0:52:06.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, there is an inherent sadness to him. You know,

0:52:06.400 --> 0:52:10.160
<v Speaker 2>it's like he almost he haunts this place totally. Yeah.

0:52:10.239 --> 0:52:13.640
<v Speaker 3>So, while they're checking in, Pierre mentions that the hotel

0:52:13.880 --> 0:52:17.719
<v Speaker 3>is mostly empty. Actually, he says, the quote is it

0:52:17.800 --> 0:52:22.200
<v Speaker 3>is dead due to the season. But Valerie smiles and she,

0:52:22.560 --> 0:52:26.080
<v Speaker 3>in her kind of agreeable way, she says, actually she

0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:29.360
<v Speaker 3>loves the seaside in winter, and Pierre says, Madame is

0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:30.000
<v Speaker 3>quite right.

0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:30.800
<v Speaker 2>It is much.

0:52:30.719 --> 0:52:35.480
<v Speaker 3>Quieter, with probably some amount of back pain. Pierre lifts

0:52:35.520 --> 0:52:37.600
<v Speaker 3>their luggage up and begins to carry it up to

0:52:37.640 --> 0:52:39.960
<v Speaker 3>the room. No so, no bell, hop, no cart. It

0:52:40.040 --> 0:52:42.640
<v Speaker 3>is all raw Pierre muscle at this hotel. He's got

0:52:42.680 --> 0:52:43.880
<v Speaker 3>like five suitcases.

0:52:44.239 --> 0:52:47.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and we see the stairs right there. I mean, yeah,

0:52:48.520 --> 0:52:51.680
<v Speaker 2>this location is tremendous and this stairway is very dramatic,

0:52:52.239 --> 0:52:55.239
<v Speaker 2>at least if you're fashionably walking down those stairs and

0:52:55.280 --> 0:52:58.080
<v Speaker 2>not lugging all of this luggage up those stairs. I

0:52:58.080 --> 0:53:00.680
<v Speaker 2>don't think there's an elevator in this hotel, or is there.

0:53:00.920 --> 0:53:02.000
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. We don't see it.

0:53:02.040 --> 0:53:05.480
<v Speaker 3>Do Anyway, While Pierre has taken the bags up a

0:53:05.560 --> 0:53:08.759
<v Speaker 3>Valerie reminds Stephan that he promised to phone his mother

0:53:08.840 --> 0:53:12.440
<v Speaker 3>when they arrived. Stephan first tries to make an excuse,

0:53:12.520 --> 0:53:15.640
<v Speaker 3>but then he reluctantly agrees. So he chases down Pierre,

0:53:15.680 --> 0:53:17.920
<v Speaker 3>who's in the middle of going up the staircase with

0:53:18.000 --> 0:53:20.480
<v Speaker 3>the bags, and he interrupts him while he's holding all

0:53:20.520 --> 0:53:24.280
<v Speaker 3>of this weight. And here's Stefan pulls a trick. He writes,

0:53:24.719 --> 0:53:27.040
<v Speaker 3>he writes on a piece of paper and hands it

0:53:27.080 --> 0:53:29.120
<v Speaker 3>to Pierre, and he asks him to call this number

0:53:29.160 --> 0:53:31.440
<v Speaker 3>and put him through at the room. But the slip

0:53:31.480 --> 0:53:33.920
<v Speaker 3>of paper, we can see it, and it actually says

0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:37.000
<v Speaker 3>say there is no reply, and he hands Pierre some

0:53:37.080 --> 0:53:39.600
<v Speaker 3>money with it. So there are kind of two levels

0:53:39.600 --> 0:53:42.560
<v Speaker 3>of drama here, Like the main one is between Stefan,

0:53:42.960 --> 0:53:46.840
<v Speaker 3>Stephan and Valerie. We're seeing Stefan pull a trick to

0:53:47.040 --> 0:53:49.480
<v Speaker 3>deceive the woman he just got married to, and wonder

0:53:49.560 --> 0:53:51.759
<v Speaker 3>We're wondering why is he lying? What's going to happen

0:53:51.800 --> 0:53:54.680
<v Speaker 3>if Valerie finds out? But the second level of drama

0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:57.359
<v Speaker 3>is more subtle. It's that you've got this creaky old

0:53:57.440 --> 0:54:01.200
<v Speaker 3>concierge carrying like five suitcases at once. He's going up

0:54:01.239 --> 0:54:03.799
<v Speaker 3>the stairs for the millionth time in his life, and

0:54:03.880 --> 0:54:07.800
<v Speaker 3>the young strong Stefan is just carelessly making him stop

0:54:07.840 --> 0:54:11.400
<v Speaker 3>in the middle of this climb holding his bags to

0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:14.720
<v Speaker 3>enlist him against his will in a plot to deceive

0:54:14.760 --> 0:54:15.280
<v Speaker 3>his wife.

0:54:15.640 --> 0:54:16.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:54:16.280 --> 0:54:18.960
<v Speaker 3>There, this was many years before The White Lotus. But

0:54:19.000 --> 0:54:22.919
<v Speaker 3>I feel some thematic kinship here. Yeah, that that sort

0:54:22.920 --> 0:54:26.040
<v Speaker 3>of theme I guess is more certain top level or

0:54:26.040 --> 0:54:28.920
<v Speaker 3>primary in White Lotus. Kind of a subtext here, But

0:54:29.200 --> 0:54:31.080
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. I was getting some overlap.

0:54:31.280 --> 0:54:32.279
<v Speaker 2>No, no, that's a good call.

0:54:32.880 --> 0:54:36.080
<v Speaker 3>In their room, Stefan gets the call and he feigns surprised.

0:54:36.080 --> 0:54:38.680
<v Speaker 3>What do you mean you can't connect? Well, keep trying.

0:54:38.760 --> 0:54:41.560
<v Speaker 3>He orders Pierre to keep it up. And then later

0:54:41.680 --> 0:54:45.600
<v Speaker 3>we see Valerie and Stephan having supper in an otherwise deserted,

0:54:45.680 --> 0:54:49.200
<v Speaker 3>white tablecloth dining room. And despite the luxury, I'm sure

0:54:49.200 --> 0:54:51.920
<v Speaker 3>this is supposed to be like a Michelin Star kitchen,

0:54:52.280 --> 0:54:54.440
<v Speaker 3>something is just rather cursed in this room.

0:54:54.560 --> 0:54:57.879
<v Speaker 2>I would hate to be in this room. It's awful. Now,

0:54:57.920 --> 0:55:01.520
<v Speaker 2>this dining room, I believe is one off, if not

0:55:01.640 --> 0:55:04.759
<v Speaker 2>the only interior location that is at the hotel. And

0:55:04.800 --> 0:55:08.120
<v Speaker 2>I'll stend Oh, okay, so but it I mean it

0:55:08.120 --> 0:55:12.400
<v Speaker 2>has a beautiful windows, but uh yeah, it is very depopulated,

0:55:12.520 --> 0:55:15.319
<v Speaker 2>and so there is an inherent kind of sadness to it.

0:55:15.600 --> 0:55:18.239
<v Speaker 3>Maybe that's it's just that it's empty, and I don't know.

0:55:18.360 --> 0:55:21.880
<v Speaker 3>Something about the the emptiness and the combination of colors

0:55:21.920 --> 0:55:22.920
<v Speaker 3>and the lighting.

0:55:23.440 --> 0:55:25.879
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. It's like they've come to stay at

0:55:25.880 --> 0:55:30.200
<v Speaker 2>the Overlook Hotel during the office. Yes, yeah, yeah, you know.

0:55:30.480 --> 0:55:34.719
<v Speaker 3>Food somehow never looks good in European movies from the seventies.

0:55:34.760 --> 0:55:37.120
<v Speaker 3>I don't know exactly why this is, no matter how

0:55:37.160 --> 0:55:41.040
<v Speaker 3>good it must have looked in real life. This film

0:55:41.080 --> 0:55:44.280
<v Speaker 3>grain or something just makes it look like wretched mush.

0:55:44.640 --> 0:55:47.480
<v Speaker 3>And there is a scene later where Valerie is she's

0:55:47.520 --> 0:55:49.800
<v Speaker 3>cutting up a roll or a bun of some kind

0:55:49.880 --> 0:55:53.440
<v Speaker 3>in bed, and I despise this bun. It looks hard

0:55:53.600 --> 0:55:56.480
<v Speaker 3>and dense and awful, just some kind of disgusting like

0:55:56.600 --> 0:55:58.640
<v Speaker 3>pretzel brick as big as a fist.

0:55:58.880 --> 0:56:00.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I could never really make out what they're eating.

0:56:00.719 --> 0:56:03.239
<v Speaker 2>Even in this scene. It's like they're in tearing into

0:56:03.239 --> 0:56:06.680
<v Speaker 2>a fish and I'm not sure if it's breakfast or dinner.

0:56:06.719 --> 0:56:09.120
<v Speaker 2>And then the scene in bed, I feel like a

0:56:09.160 --> 0:56:10.960
<v Speaker 2>bowl of shrimp and I was like, are they having

0:56:11.000 --> 0:56:13.479
<v Speaker 2>shrimp for breakfast? I don't know what's going on here.

0:56:13.560 --> 0:56:18.200
<v Speaker 2>We definitely see some gray lobsters later. It's just it

0:56:18.200 --> 0:56:18.919
<v Speaker 2>doesn't look good.

0:56:19.560 --> 0:56:22.359
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, the foods, the foods on the platters are

0:56:22.440 --> 0:56:25.759
<v Speaker 3>nicely covered by these crystal domes. I'm sure that keeps

0:56:25.760 --> 0:56:26.680
<v Speaker 3>it real nice and warm.

0:56:26.880 --> 0:56:28.560
<v Speaker 2>Remember that. Oh.

0:56:28.600 --> 0:56:31.800
<v Speaker 3>Also at the dinner scene, more questions about Chilton man or.

0:56:31.880 --> 0:56:34.319
<v Speaker 3>Valeriees like, don't you think it's odd that no one's

0:56:34.400 --> 0:56:37.560
<v Speaker 3>answering the phone at your house? And he's like, taste

0:56:37.680 --> 0:56:38.520
<v Speaker 3>my gray fish.

0:56:38.680 --> 0:56:41.359
<v Speaker 2>You know, he holds the fish up, and he's living

0:56:41.400 --> 0:56:44.280
<v Speaker 2>in the moment in like the least healthy way possible

0:56:44.680 --> 0:56:45.239
<v Speaker 2>this whole time.

0:56:45.600 --> 0:56:48.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so Stephan says, I don't see why you make

0:56:48.680 --> 0:56:51.680
<v Speaker 3>such a fuss about my mother's opinion. The fact is

0:56:51.920 --> 0:56:56.120
<v Speaker 3>she already hates you without knowing you exist. And eventually

0:56:56.200 --> 0:56:58.120
<v Speaker 3>Valerie gets him to promise that he's going to go

0:56:58.239 --> 0:57:01.200
<v Speaker 3>ahead of her to England to prepare his mother to

0:57:01.200 --> 0:57:04.200
<v Speaker 3>meet her, and he's going to leave tomorrow or maybe

0:57:04.200 --> 0:57:06.719
<v Speaker 3>the day after or maybe the day after that.

0:57:07.239 --> 0:57:10.600
<v Speaker 2>But soon also sounds problematic, sounds a little bit like

0:57:10.719 --> 0:57:11.759
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to leave you.

0:57:12.120 --> 0:57:15.840
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but of course into their life. A storm is

0:57:15.840 --> 0:57:18.520
<v Speaker 3>about to blow, because here we get to the arrival

0:57:18.720 --> 0:57:23.760
<v Speaker 3>of Countess Bathory. She arrives at speed, driven in this

0:57:23.840 --> 0:57:27.000
<v Speaker 3>old fashioned European luxury sedan rob I don't know if

0:57:27.000 --> 0:57:28.720
<v Speaker 3>you know anything about cars or what kind of car

0:57:28.800 --> 0:57:30.760
<v Speaker 3>this is, but it seems like a kind of fancy,

0:57:30.880 --> 0:57:34.000
<v Speaker 3>old old style car, like it's from a different age.

0:57:34.200 --> 0:57:35.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it looks sporty.

0:57:35.440 --> 0:57:38.840
<v Speaker 3>It's being driven by a young woman named Ilona, whom

0:57:39.360 --> 0:57:43.680
<v Speaker 3>the Countess calls her assistant or secretary. We first see

0:57:43.720 --> 0:57:46.040
<v Speaker 3>the Countess as a dark silhouette in the car, and

0:57:46.080 --> 0:57:49.840
<v Speaker 3>then as she's getting out, we see just these gleaming

0:57:50.000 --> 0:57:53.920
<v Speaker 3>strips of polished black leather. That's her tall boots, and

0:57:53.960 --> 0:57:56.120
<v Speaker 3>she's climbing out of the car one leg at a time.

0:57:56.440 --> 0:57:59.360
<v Speaker 3>We pan up across her body. She's dressed mostly in

0:57:59.440 --> 0:58:03.200
<v Speaker 3>black with furs leather, I think some feathers in there too,

0:58:03.840 --> 0:58:06.160
<v Speaker 3>And then when we get to her face, we don't

0:58:06.160 --> 0:58:10.840
<v Speaker 3>see her eyes at all. It's just pale skin and

0:58:10.960 --> 0:58:14.360
<v Speaker 3>cherry red lips behind a black mesh veil, and it's

0:58:14.560 --> 0:58:17.000
<v Speaker 3>just a mouth. The top half of her face is

0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:19.680
<v Speaker 3>hidden in shadow. There's just the red mouth.

0:58:20.480 --> 0:58:23.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what a presentation. I think. Towards the end of

0:58:23.040 --> 0:58:25.240
<v Speaker 2>this shot we see like the glistening of her eyes

0:58:25.280 --> 0:58:31.200
<v Speaker 2>and they almost look black. Yeah, both the filmmakers and

0:58:31.400 --> 0:58:35.920
<v Speaker 2>sarag here apparently took inspiration like direct homage to German

0:58:35.960 --> 0:58:40.320
<v Speaker 2>and American actress and icon Marlene Dietrich. So that's, you know,

0:58:40.720 --> 0:58:45.320
<v Speaker 2>interwoven throughout the picture, you know, very overt shades of

0:58:45.360 --> 0:58:46.360
<v Speaker 2>Marlene Dietrich. Here.

0:58:47.360 --> 0:58:50.480
<v Speaker 3>Elona is also, by the way, pale and dressed in black,

0:58:50.720 --> 0:58:53.760
<v Speaker 3>but with an energy of perpetual anxiety. She's got a

0:58:53.880 --> 0:58:58.120
<v Speaker 3>kind of learned helplessness. And the first thing she says

0:58:58.160 --> 0:59:01.160
<v Speaker 3>is something kind of desperate about how she hopes this

0:59:01.240 --> 0:59:04.680
<v Speaker 3>place will prove acceptable so they can stop traveling, And

0:59:04.720 --> 0:59:09.000
<v Speaker 3>the Countess is exactly the opposite. She just oozes confidence

0:59:09.080 --> 0:59:12.920
<v Speaker 3>and domination. She tells Ilona to unpack their luggage and

0:59:12.960 --> 0:59:16.560
<v Speaker 3>she goes inside, and then once she's inside the hotel,

0:59:16.600 --> 0:59:18.600
<v Speaker 3>we really get a good look at her where she's

0:59:18.600 --> 0:59:23.320
<v Speaker 3>like hidden behind this meshure veil, and she she looks

0:59:23.440 --> 0:59:27.280
<v Speaker 3>at people with this little smile like she could just

0:59:27.440 --> 0:59:30.880
<v Speaker 3>like disassemble them and like make make furniture out of

0:59:30.920 --> 0:59:31.680
<v Speaker 3>their organs.

0:59:33.600 --> 0:59:36.880
<v Speaker 2>It is just such a like a pitch perfect you know,

0:59:37.240 --> 0:59:40.640
<v Speaker 2>iconic fem fatale presentation. Here, I mean the look, but

0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:46.440
<v Speaker 2>also her performance of this character is just so pitch perfect. Yeah.

0:59:46.480 --> 0:59:49.320
<v Speaker 3>So she meets Pierre, the concierge, and asks him for

0:59:49.400 --> 0:59:52.040
<v Speaker 3>the royal suite. It's the best, the best suite in

0:59:52.080 --> 0:59:55.680
<v Speaker 3>the place. Unfortunately he has already rented it out to

0:59:55.720 --> 0:59:58.040
<v Speaker 3>the only other couple in the hotel, pointing them out

0:59:58.080 --> 1:00:01.200
<v Speaker 3>in the dining room. And when the Countess looks in

1:00:01.280 --> 1:00:05.080
<v Speaker 3>through the glass at Stefan and Valerie, uh, they're well,

1:00:05.080 --> 1:00:08.560
<v Speaker 3>they're I think they're biting pieces of fruit. If that's

1:00:08.760 --> 1:00:10.440
<v Speaker 3>some Garden of Eden imagery or not.

1:00:10.880 --> 1:00:13.560
<v Speaker 2>He has a green apple, yes, yes, uh.

1:00:13.760 --> 1:00:17.120
<v Speaker 3>But the Countess's eyes like turn into laser beams, like

1:00:17.200 --> 1:00:20.480
<v Speaker 3>she sees what she wants. But is it Valerie or

1:00:20.520 --> 1:00:23.760
<v Speaker 3>is it Stefan. Well we'll have to learn later. But

1:00:23.840 --> 1:00:27.000
<v Speaker 3>the Countess says to Pierre like, oh, no matter that

1:00:27.040 --> 1:00:28.600
<v Speaker 3>I can't have the royal suite, I just want the

1:00:28.600 --> 1:00:31.640
<v Speaker 3>suite adjoining theirs. And I have to say that is

1:00:31.760 --> 1:00:32.640
<v Speaker 3>bad manners.

1:00:34.600 --> 1:00:36.480
<v Speaker 2>But as we're about to learn, she gets what she

1:00:36.560 --> 1:00:38.320
<v Speaker 2>wants here. That is true.

1:00:38.360 --> 1:00:40.880
<v Speaker 3>I think there's similar rules about like bathroom stalls and

1:00:41.000 --> 1:00:43.800
<v Speaker 3>urinals and stuff like, you don't if there are a

1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:45.600
<v Speaker 3>bunch of empty ones, you don't go to the one

1:00:45.680 --> 1:00:47.040
<v Speaker 3>right next to the occupied one.

1:00:47.120 --> 1:00:49.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we can space things out a little bit sweet

1:00:49.120 --> 1:00:51.080
<v Speaker 2>wise in this place. Yeah.

1:00:51.120 --> 1:00:55.200
<v Speaker 3>Also, Pierre is shaken in this scene. He because he

1:00:55.320 --> 1:00:58.760
<v Speaker 3>says he remembers the Countess. He says he's seen her before.

1:00:59.760 --> 1:01:02.760
<v Speaker 3>She stayed at the hotel once many years ago when

1:01:02.840 --> 1:01:05.320
<v Speaker 3>he was a boy. But that doesn't make any sense

1:01:05.400 --> 1:01:08.160
<v Speaker 3>because he was a boy then and now he is old,

1:01:08.280 --> 1:01:10.600
<v Speaker 3>and she looks the same as she did when he

1:01:10.640 --> 1:01:11.320
<v Speaker 3>first saw her.

1:01:12.200 --> 1:01:13.280
<v Speaker 2>But she is unmoved.

1:01:13.320 --> 1:01:16.880
<v Speaker 3>She says, my mother, Perhaps Pierre is freaked out.

1:01:17.320 --> 1:01:20.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I thought it was a very convincing free cap,

1:01:20.080 --> 1:01:24.160
<v Speaker 2>Like there's a he seems to be not only confronting

1:01:24.200 --> 1:01:26.960
<v Speaker 2>the supernatural in this, but confronting his own mortality, you know,

1:01:27.080 --> 1:01:30.520
<v Speaker 2>Like it's really I mean, he's really shaken here. Yeah.

1:01:30.600 --> 1:01:33.240
<v Speaker 3>Now, later, Ilona comes in with their bags and the

1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:35.800
<v Speaker 3>Countess points out the couple to hers. She says, look

1:01:35.840 --> 1:01:39.320
<v Speaker 3>how perfect they are. And then Valerie looks up and

1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:42.160
<v Speaker 3>catches the two creeps just staring straight at her.

1:01:43.000 --> 1:01:44.760
<v Speaker 2>But later that night, Valerie.

1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:47.120
<v Speaker 3>And Stephan talked to Pierre. They learned the countess's name.

1:01:47.200 --> 1:01:51.160
<v Speaker 3>Why it is the Countess Elizabeth Battori, and Stefan seems

1:01:51.200 --> 1:01:54.600
<v Speaker 3>to make something of this. Now we do get a

1:01:54.640 --> 1:01:57.760
<v Speaker 3>scene of the Countess and Elona together in their room.

1:01:57.920 --> 1:02:01.960
<v Speaker 3>Elona is staring at the window and Valerie is. They're

1:02:02.000 --> 1:02:05.040
<v Speaker 3>actually outside walking on the beach in the dark down below,

1:02:05.760 --> 1:02:09.040
<v Speaker 3>and Elona says she can't wait another day. She is

1:02:09.080 --> 1:02:12.040
<v Speaker 3>in need right now, in need for what. I think

1:02:12.040 --> 1:02:15.480
<v Speaker 3>we're going to assume blood, But the Countess says no,

1:02:15.720 --> 1:02:18.440
<v Speaker 3>they will wait, and then she keeps talking about how

1:02:18.480 --> 1:02:22.080
<v Speaker 3>perfect Valerie is. She's maybe not interested in Stepan quite

1:02:22.120 --> 1:02:27.720
<v Speaker 3>as much as Valerie, and Elona is jealous and again

1:02:27.880 --> 1:02:31.440
<v Speaker 3>mirroring the kind of the flashes of sadism we saw

1:02:31.560 --> 1:02:35.760
<v Speaker 3>in Stephan earlier, with like enjoying the situations of power

1:02:35.840 --> 1:02:40.560
<v Speaker 3>he could create over Valerie, there seems to be something

1:02:40.600 --> 1:02:42.880
<v Speaker 3>similar going on with the Countess here. I detect that

1:02:42.920 --> 1:02:46.920
<v Speaker 3>the Countess is taking pleasure in Elona's jealousy, that's like

1:02:47.040 --> 1:02:50.440
<v Speaker 3>making her happy. And then Elona says, I wish I

1:02:50.440 --> 1:02:53.840
<v Speaker 3>could die, and the Countess just replied does not address

1:02:53.920 --> 1:02:56.720
<v Speaker 3>this and just says the light. The light hurts my eyes.

1:02:57.280 --> 1:03:00.480
<v Speaker 3>So Elona takes her off her red scarf from her

1:03:00.520 --> 1:03:03.400
<v Speaker 3>neck and droops it over the lamp, tinting the room red.

1:03:04.240 --> 1:03:04.760
<v Speaker 2>Beautiful.

1:03:05.400 --> 1:03:09.680
<v Speaker 3>So there are curious emerging symmetries in these two relationships.

1:03:10.200 --> 1:03:15.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, absolutely neat, But both are very unhealthy relationships and

1:03:15.160 --> 1:03:27.080
<v Speaker 2>in very similar mirroring ways. Absolutely so.

1:03:27.280 --> 1:03:29.280
<v Speaker 3>I was thinking, maybe this is a good place. This

1:03:29.320 --> 1:03:32.000
<v Speaker 3>is sort of the end of act one here, Maybe

1:03:32.000 --> 1:03:34.600
<v Speaker 3>this is a good place to break and now recount

1:03:34.640 --> 1:03:37.720
<v Speaker 3>things in a little bit less chronological scene by seeing

1:03:37.760 --> 1:03:41.000
<v Speaker 3>detail and instead give a broader summary of the rest

1:03:41.000 --> 1:03:43.520
<v Speaker 3>of the plot, and then maybe we can come back

1:03:43.600 --> 1:03:46.120
<v Speaker 3>and talk about individual scenes that stand out.

1:03:46.480 --> 1:03:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, absolutely so.

1:03:48.160 --> 1:03:51.560
<v Speaker 3>From here, while Valerie and Stephan continue their stay at

1:03:51.560 --> 1:03:56.680
<v Speaker 3>the hotel, the Countess and Ilona insinuate themselves into Valerie

1:03:56.720 --> 1:03:59.760
<v Speaker 3>and Stephan's lives. There's a scene where they have a

1:03:59.800 --> 1:04:02.640
<v Speaker 3>long conversation in the hotel lobby that we can come

1:04:02.680 --> 1:04:06.040
<v Speaker 3>back and revisit. But they talk while enjoying some bizarre

1:04:06.040 --> 1:04:09.840
<v Speaker 3>looking cocktails, some green stuff, and I don't know what

1:04:09.880 --> 1:04:13.040
<v Speaker 3>all this is, but the Countess explains that she is

1:04:13.040 --> 1:04:16.960
<v Speaker 3>the descendant of the Blood Countess Ershabette Battori of the

1:04:17.040 --> 1:04:20.240
<v Speaker 3>sixteenth century. I think I was saying that right Erzhabet,

1:04:20.360 --> 1:04:23.120
<v Speaker 3>meaning the same as Elizabeth, just happens to have the

1:04:23.160 --> 1:04:26.440
<v Speaker 3>exact same name as her descendant here, who is famous

1:04:26.480 --> 1:04:30.000
<v Speaker 3>for kidnapping and murdering young girls in a bizarre ritual

1:04:30.080 --> 1:04:33.920
<v Speaker 3>that involved torture, mutilation, and bathing in her victim's blood.

1:04:34.720 --> 1:04:40.000
<v Speaker 3>Valerie is more than a little distressed that Stefan is

1:04:40.160 --> 1:04:44.440
<v Speaker 3>visibly sexually excited by this conversation about murder and mutilation,

1:04:45.080 --> 1:04:47.800
<v Speaker 3>and then also that he and the Countess start, I

1:04:47.800 --> 1:04:49.960
<v Speaker 3>don't know what they're doing, some kind of like murder

1:04:50.040 --> 1:04:52.720
<v Speaker 3>lore foreplay right in front of everybody in the middle

1:04:52.720 --> 1:04:53.880
<v Speaker 3>of the lobby in.

1:04:53.800 --> 1:04:59.000
<v Speaker 2>A very like, physically believable and yet outrageous way. The

1:04:59.040 --> 1:05:02.680
<v Speaker 2>Countess is basic like, let me touch your nipples whilst

1:05:02.680 --> 1:05:06.080
<v Speaker 2>I tell you about the many crimes of my ancestor

1:05:06.200 --> 1:05:07.280
<v Speaker 2>aka myself.

1:05:07.560 --> 1:05:11.200
<v Speaker 3>Yes, and Stephan is like he is having an out

1:05:11.200 --> 1:05:12.320
<v Speaker 3>of body experience.

1:05:12.560 --> 1:05:17.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and Valerie is understandably creeped out by Yeah.

1:05:17.320 --> 1:05:21.040
<v Speaker 3>So after this, Valerie convinces Stepan to call his mother

1:05:21.080 --> 1:05:23.280
<v Speaker 3>on the phone for real, but the call does not

1:05:23.520 --> 1:05:26.080
<v Speaker 3>go very well, and there is a big twist, a

1:05:26.120 --> 1:05:30.280
<v Speaker 3>big revelation here. The person that Stepan calls is in

1:05:30.320 --> 1:05:34.360
<v Speaker 3>fact an older man lounging in this lavish conservatory in

1:05:34.680 --> 1:05:37.960
<v Speaker 3>Chilton manner as this place filled with plants, who kind

1:05:37.960 --> 1:05:40.480
<v Speaker 3>of reacts with a raised eyebrow at the news that

1:05:40.520 --> 1:05:43.400
<v Speaker 3>Stefan is married and sort of mocks him for it.

1:05:44.080 --> 1:05:46.400
<v Speaker 3>I believe a lot has been made of this scene

1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:49.080
<v Speaker 3>with the phone call, and there are questions about how

1:05:49.120 --> 1:05:51.560
<v Speaker 3>to interpret it. Robert, I wonder if you read it

1:05:51.600 --> 1:05:53.200
<v Speaker 3>the same way I did. Did you take it that

1:05:53.320 --> 1:05:58.120
<v Speaker 3>this character is actually not supposed to be Stephan's parent

1:05:58.240 --> 1:06:00.960
<v Speaker 3>in any way, but is being called mother, but is

1:06:01.000 --> 1:06:04.760
<v Speaker 3>actually Stefan's former lover and financial benefactor.

1:06:05.400 --> 1:06:08.880
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I believe that's the interpretation that most have made,

1:06:08.880 --> 1:06:12.280
<v Speaker 2>and that's that's what I read to hear. It's just

1:06:12.440 --> 1:06:15.600
<v Speaker 2>one scene and the character that we don't even know

1:06:15.600 --> 1:06:18.800
<v Speaker 2>what this character's actual name is. The code named mother

1:06:19.400 --> 1:06:23.880
<v Speaker 2>is played by the male actor Fonz Rademachers, who lived

1:06:23.920 --> 1:06:26.760
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twenty through two thousand and seven, notable Dutch actor

1:06:26.800 --> 1:06:30.160
<v Speaker 2>and director. As an actor, his other credits include nineteen

1:06:30.160 --> 1:06:33.880
<v Speaker 2>seventy five lifespan with Kloskinsky, which I think I referenced earlier,

1:06:34.320 --> 1:06:37.200
<v Speaker 2>and as a director, his most notable achievement was nineteen

1:06:37.200 --> 1:06:39.800
<v Speaker 2>eighty six Is the Assault, which won an Oscar for

1:06:39.880 --> 1:06:43.520
<v Speaker 2>Best Foreign Language Film. His performance is quite interesting, not

1:06:43.680 --> 1:06:46.720
<v Speaker 2>only because of this twist, but because even though I

1:06:46.760 --> 1:06:49.160
<v Speaker 2>think there's supposed to be nothing at all supernatural about

1:06:49.160 --> 1:06:53.880
<v Speaker 2>this character, he also kind of has vampire energy. Yes, absolutely,

1:06:54.800 --> 1:06:57.680
<v Speaker 2>I believe it was. Yeah. I was reading about this

1:06:58.600 --> 1:07:01.240
<v Speaker 2>in the book V for Vampire by David J. Skall,

1:07:01.720 --> 1:07:05.560
<v Speaker 2>and he describes this character as an androgynist amalgam of

1:07:05.600 --> 1:07:09.160
<v Speaker 2>Oscar Wilde and Bella Lagosi. Yeah, I'd say that's about right.

1:07:09.480 --> 1:07:11.880
<v Speaker 2>Though to be clear, this character is not and is

1:07:11.920 --> 1:07:15.840
<v Speaker 2>not implied to be a vampire right right. Interestingly, this

1:07:15.840 --> 1:07:20.680
<v Speaker 2>this whole scene with the reveal of who Mother is

1:07:20.680 --> 1:07:23.080
<v Speaker 2>is you know, it's just a phone call. This character

1:07:23.120 --> 1:07:26.440
<v Speaker 2>shares no actual physical scenes with any other actor in

1:07:26.480 --> 1:07:30.440
<v Speaker 2>the film, and John Carlin has has pointed out that

1:07:30.440 --> 1:07:35.919
<v Speaker 2>that the director intentionally didn't want him to know the

1:07:35.960 --> 1:07:40.080
<v Speaker 2>identity of Mother and kept it from him, but one

1:07:40.120 --> 1:07:43.000
<v Speaker 2>of the producers got in touch with Carlin and told

1:07:43.080 --> 1:07:45.400
<v Speaker 2>him because he's like you know, because like, hey, you're

1:07:45.400 --> 1:07:48.000
<v Speaker 2>an actor, you need to know like your actual role.

1:07:48.720 --> 1:07:50.440
<v Speaker 2>But also he's like he didn't want it there to

1:07:50.480 --> 1:07:52.760
<v Speaker 2>be any like any like weird feelings, like after the

1:07:52.760 --> 1:07:54.760
<v Speaker 2>fact of the movie comes out and then and then

1:07:54.760 --> 1:07:58.440
<v Speaker 2>he finds out the twist. So he actually played this

1:07:58.560 --> 1:07:59.960
<v Speaker 2>scene knowing what the twist was.

1:08:00.680 --> 1:08:05.600
<v Speaker 3>Oh okay, Well, so I think this scene is very

1:08:05.640 --> 1:08:08.320
<v Speaker 3>open to interpretation and there are a lot of unanswered

1:08:08.400 --> 1:08:10.400
<v Speaker 3>questions about it. Maybe we can address that a little

1:08:10.440 --> 1:08:14.160
<v Speaker 3>bit more in a few minutes, but it's clear that

1:08:14.360 --> 1:08:18.520
<v Speaker 3>it does. It's a source of kind of like unresolved

1:08:18.560 --> 1:08:22.400
<v Speaker 3>anxiety and pain for the character of Stepan, like that

1:08:22.640 --> 1:08:25.760
<v Speaker 3>he is he is not happy with this conversation.

1:08:26.439 --> 1:08:29.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you'd definitely get the feeling that everything that he

1:08:29.800 --> 1:08:34.640
<v Speaker 2>is doing right now is in response to problems with

1:08:34.720 --> 1:08:38.920
<v Speaker 2>his relationship with this individual, with the person we're referring

1:08:38.960 --> 1:08:39.519
<v Speaker 2>to his mother.

1:08:40.080 --> 1:08:44.479
<v Speaker 3>And but Stephan he does not deal with this pain well. Instead,

1:08:44.560 --> 1:08:47.680
<v Speaker 3>he has some kind of emotional episode which turns into

1:08:47.840 --> 1:08:51.519
<v Speaker 3>rage and then violence directed toward Valerie, and he beats

1:08:51.600 --> 1:08:54.800
<v Speaker 3>and rapes her. The rape happens off screen, but it's

1:08:55.000 --> 1:08:59.160
<v Speaker 3>he turns violent toward her after the scene, Valerie wakes

1:08:59.240 --> 1:09:02.400
<v Speaker 3>up while steph And is still sleeping and tries to

1:09:02.479 --> 1:09:06.000
<v Speaker 3>leave town by herself to escape the situation, but the

1:09:06.040 --> 1:09:10.360
<v Speaker 3>Countess then intervenes, meets her at the train station and

1:09:10.439 --> 1:09:13.200
<v Speaker 3>prevents her from leaving. She's trying to talk her into staying,

1:09:13.640 --> 1:09:17.400
<v Speaker 3>not into staying with Stephan, but into staying maybe with

1:09:17.479 --> 1:09:21.280
<v Speaker 3>her Yeah, and they spend time together at some kind

1:09:21.280 --> 1:09:25.560
<v Speaker 3>of spa or mineral spring, where they discuss Valerie's relationship

1:09:25.600 --> 1:09:29.360
<v Speaker 3>with Stefan and the many dangers he presents, but it's

1:09:29.760 --> 1:09:35.320
<v Speaker 3>increasingly clear over time that the Countess wants Valerie for herself. Meanwhile,

1:09:35.360 --> 1:09:39.920
<v Speaker 3>at the Hotel, Ilona, on the Countess's instruction she's been

1:09:39.960 --> 1:09:43.519
<v Speaker 3>told to do this, goes to Stephan and seduces him.

1:09:44.160 --> 1:09:44.840
<v Speaker 2>And after this.

1:09:44.880 --> 1:09:48.240
<v Speaker 3>They're they're in the bathroom and they're sort of messing

1:09:48.280 --> 1:09:52.280
<v Speaker 3>around and Stephan sort of he's he thinks he's being playful,

1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:54.559
<v Speaker 3>but once again there's this blurred line between kind of

1:09:54.600 --> 1:09:57.959
<v Speaker 3>flirtation and aggression with him, where he's like being playful

1:09:58.000 --> 1:10:00.519
<v Speaker 3>but he's actually being violent. And he's trying to put

1:10:00.560 --> 1:10:03.600
<v Speaker 3>Ilona in the shower and he's laughing while he's doing it.

1:10:03.600 --> 1:10:07.760
<v Speaker 3>And she's screaming no, seemingly in this case because the

1:10:08.200 --> 1:10:11.640
<v Speaker 3>shower water actually might harm her. They mentioned earlier that

1:10:11.760 --> 1:10:13.800
<v Speaker 3>vampires shrink from clear running water.

1:10:14.200 --> 1:10:17.439
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yah yah. Running moving water is sometimes like the

1:10:17.479 --> 1:10:21.080
<v Speaker 2>deeper cut of a vampire weakness that isn't always employed

1:10:21.080 --> 1:10:23.960
<v Speaker 2>because I don't think storytellers often know what to do

1:10:24.000 --> 1:10:27.040
<v Speaker 2>with it, or it seems like too potent of a weakness.

1:10:27.520 --> 1:10:29.080
<v Speaker 2>But it's nicely used here.

1:10:29.520 --> 1:10:34.400
<v Speaker 3>But in the struggle, Ilona falls on his shaving razor

1:10:34.560 --> 1:10:38.080
<v Speaker 3>and she is killed. The Countess and Valerie arrive back

1:10:38.120 --> 1:10:40.559
<v Speaker 3>at the hotel room just in time to see this,

1:10:40.800 --> 1:10:43.519
<v Speaker 3>to see the body. This seems to be going almost

1:10:43.560 --> 1:10:45.120
<v Speaker 3>exactly as the count has planned.

1:10:45.479 --> 1:10:47.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I kind of I was thinking about this.

1:10:47.720 --> 1:10:51.040
<v Speaker 2>You can easily imagine that they were supposed to walk

1:10:51.080 --> 1:10:54.320
<v Speaker 2>in on the two of them in bed together or

1:10:54.360 --> 1:10:59.280
<v Speaker 2>showering together or something. But ope, surprise, she's managed to

1:10:59.280 --> 1:11:02.519
<v Speaker 2>get herself killed by him, and the Countess is probably like, well,

1:11:02.560 --> 1:11:04.679
<v Speaker 2>this is even better. This has worked out even better

1:11:04.720 --> 1:11:05.400
<v Speaker 2>than I planned.

1:11:06.080 --> 1:11:09.479
<v Speaker 3>So now the Countess takes control, She takes control of

1:11:09.520 --> 1:11:12.040
<v Speaker 3>the situation. We get the sense that she's probably disposed

1:11:12.080 --> 1:11:12.719
<v Speaker 3>of a body.

1:11:12.560 --> 1:11:14.120
<v Speaker 2>Or two before, I think so.

1:11:14.439 --> 1:11:17.479
<v Speaker 3>And she instructs Valerie and Stephan in how to clean

1:11:17.520 --> 1:11:19.840
<v Speaker 3>up the crime scene and how to get Alonea's body

1:11:19.880 --> 1:11:22.519
<v Speaker 3>into her car, and then they drive out to this

1:11:22.680 --> 1:11:24.000
<v Speaker 3>desolate beach.

1:11:23.800 --> 1:11:24.639
<v Speaker 2>Far from town.

1:11:25.360 --> 1:11:29.679
<v Speaker 3>Again, all the locations that should be beautiful are actually

1:11:29.720 --> 1:11:30.920
<v Speaker 3>just horrible and bleak.

1:11:31.240 --> 1:11:32.080
<v Speaker 2>This is one of them.

1:11:32.360 --> 1:11:34.559
<v Speaker 3>They go out to this horrible beach and they bury

1:11:34.600 --> 1:11:37.320
<v Speaker 3>her body in the sand. By the way, here, they're

1:11:37.320 --> 1:11:41.439
<v Speaker 3>being watched by this older detective character we mentioned earlier,

1:11:41.560 --> 1:11:44.080
<v Speaker 3>who's he shows up in the scene where they're having

1:11:44.120 --> 1:11:46.920
<v Speaker 3>the conversation and the lobby also maybe we can talk

1:11:46.920 --> 1:11:50.240
<v Speaker 3>about that, but he's sort of been on the case

1:11:50.280 --> 1:11:53.360
<v Speaker 3>of the countess, we are led to believe. And then

1:11:53.479 --> 1:11:55.920
<v Speaker 3>on the way back from this, the countess just like

1:11:56.040 --> 1:11:58.840
<v Speaker 3>runs him down with her car while he's on a bicycle.

1:12:00.520 --> 1:12:05.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, there's no nobody's coming to save them. The

1:12:05.680 --> 1:12:09.040
<v Speaker 2>beach you mentioned, like the desolate beach sequence here, I

1:12:09.080 --> 1:12:13.120
<v Speaker 2>mean tremendous in many ways. I love, like you see

1:12:13.120 --> 1:12:16.200
<v Speaker 2>the big concrete reinforcements of the beach. So even the

1:12:16.240 --> 1:12:20.840
<v Speaker 2>beach here is like reinforced by domination and man made violence. Yea.

1:12:21.520 --> 1:12:24.519
<v Speaker 2>And then and then the burying of the body is

1:12:24.560 --> 1:12:30.240
<v Speaker 2>just really perfectly executed, like the harshness of her body

1:12:30.280 --> 1:12:33.000
<v Speaker 2>being thrown in on top of Steph and it almost

1:12:33.000 --> 1:12:34.880
<v Speaker 2>seems that for a moment there that they're intending to

1:12:34.920 --> 1:12:36.280
<v Speaker 2>bury him alive with her.

1:12:36.720 --> 1:12:39.960
<v Speaker 3>I think they're considering it, and they kind of back away,

1:12:40.040 --> 1:12:42.599
<v Speaker 3>but I don't know. I think they'll get there eventually.

1:12:43.720 --> 1:12:45.920
<v Speaker 3>So the three of them go back to the Countess's

1:12:46.000 --> 1:12:49.519
<v Speaker 3>room after this. Actually first I think Stefan and Valerie

1:12:49.600 --> 1:12:50.040
<v Speaker 3>go back.

1:12:49.880 --> 1:12:52.680
<v Speaker 2>To their room, but Valerie.

1:12:52.240 --> 1:12:55.560
<v Speaker 3>Is beginning to fall under the sway of the Countess,

1:12:55.600 --> 1:12:58.720
<v Speaker 3>and I think there are interesting questions, Rob, I don't

1:12:58.760 --> 1:13:00.960
<v Speaker 3>know if this is a good place to talk about

1:13:00.960 --> 1:13:04.800
<v Speaker 3>it might as well. To what extent do you think

1:13:05.439 --> 1:13:10.280
<v Speaker 3>Valerie's submission to the Countess is supposed to be like

1:13:10.439 --> 1:13:13.720
<v Speaker 3>magical vampire hypnotism in nature, or what part of it

1:13:13.800 --> 1:13:17.000
<v Speaker 3>is just a kind of like a kind of helplessness

1:13:17.000 --> 1:13:20.720
<v Speaker 3>and expression, further expression of what she's already shown but

1:13:21.400 --> 1:13:23.600
<v Speaker 3>from her personality, but taken to the extreme.

1:13:24.320 --> 1:13:27.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's a lot of ambiguity to this, like is

1:13:27.120 --> 1:13:31.240
<v Speaker 2>this just further domination? Is it to some degree liberation

1:13:33.040 --> 1:13:33.679
<v Speaker 2>in a way?

1:13:33.840 --> 1:13:38.719
<v Speaker 3>I mean liberation, yes, from Stephan, who is she needs

1:13:38.800 --> 1:13:41.880
<v Speaker 3>liberating from, but also it seems to be putting her

1:13:41.960 --> 1:13:44.480
<v Speaker 3>under the control of a new oppressor.

1:13:44.320 --> 1:13:47.640
<v Speaker 2>Right, and we've already seen the end result of the

1:13:47.800 --> 1:13:50.800
<v Speaker 2>of oppression by the Countess, you know, like she has

1:13:50.920 --> 1:13:54.280
<v Speaker 2>she has clearly disposed of many thralls over the years,

1:13:54.320 --> 1:13:57.200
<v Speaker 2>and they eventually just become tools and not darlings to her.

1:13:57.640 --> 1:14:00.000
<v Speaker 3>But anyway, well, so Valerie is in this state while

1:14:00.160 --> 1:14:04.840
<v Speaker 3>where she's becoming increasingly entrall to the Countess, and you know,

1:14:05.120 --> 1:14:08.400
<v Speaker 3>she and Stephan in some way also they're both seemingly

1:14:08.439 --> 1:14:12.280
<v Speaker 3>having their wills kind of reduced, and Stephan wants to

1:14:12.320 --> 1:14:15.479
<v Speaker 3>reassert control over Valerie and commands her to leave with him,

1:14:15.479 --> 1:14:18.040
<v Speaker 3>but she won't go, so they end up in the

1:14:18.040 --> 1:14:23.080
<v Speaker 3>Countess's room having another horrible hotel room service dinner, and

1:14:23.960 --> 1:14:27.760
<v Speaker 3>a fight erupts and Stephan is killed after the two

1:14:27.760 --> 1:14:31.639
<v Speaker 3>women smash a crystal bowl on his face and cut

1:14:31.760 --> 1:14:34.400
<v Speaker 3>him up with the shards, and then they just both

1:14:35.000 --> 1:14:36.559
<v Speaker 3>drink the blood from his wounds.

1:14:36.840 --> 1:14:43.479
<v Speaker 2>This sequence here, the killing slash sacrificing of Stefan. It's

1:14:43.479 --> 1:14:45.839
<v Speaker 2>a scene that is both ridiculed, like when it happened.

1:14:46.760 --> 1:14:48.679
<v Speaker 2>I think my job dropped and I kind of laughed

1:14:48.680 --> 1:14:51.240
<v Speaker 2>a little because, Yeah, they push it down on his face.

1:14:51.520 --> 1:14:56.439
<v Speaker 2>It even the crystal plate cover like cleanly snaps in two.

1:14:56.960 --> 1:15:00.400
<v Speaker 2>The two snapped sides flip around and land on his risks,

1:15:00.439 --> 1:15:03.280
<v Speaker 2>slicing them open, and then they both begin to feed.

1:15:03.640 --> 1:15:07.280
<v Speaker 2>But it's so perfect in its execution too. It feels

1:15:07.400 --> 1:15:11.400
<v Speaker 2>like it feels like a sacred symbol. It feels like

1:15:11.479 --> 1:15:14.160
<v Speaker 2>there's a there's a there's a structural completeness to it

1:15:14.160 --> 1:15:15.000
<v Speaker 2>that I really liked.

1:15:15.160 --> 1:15:18.800
<v Speaker 3>A very similar thing happened when when Ilona fell on

1:15:18.840 --> 1:15:21.040
<v Speaker 3>the razor in the earlier scene, there was a kind

1:15:21.120 --> 1:15:24.000
<v Speaker 3>of almost a magical hand guiding it through the scene.

1:15:24.040 --> 1:15:27.719
<v Speaker 3>It just like perfectly happens that it slices her wrists

1:15:28.040 --> 1:15:29.960
<v Speaker 3>and then she falls on it in this kind of

1:15:29.960 --> 1:15:32.439
<v Speaker 3>implausible way. But it's all kind of done in a

1:15:32.520 --> 1:15:36.720
<v Speaker 3>slow motion with these short close up shots. Uh yeah,

1:15:36.920 --> 1:15:37.960
<v Speaker 3>a similar thing going on.

1:15:38.600 --> 1:15:42.519
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the and these and these implausible, possibly implausible deaths

1:15:42.520 --> 1:15:44.559
<v Speaker 2>are not not through and when they do it right,

1:15:45.200 --> 1:15:46.679
<v Speaker 2>they do feel like destiny.

1:15:47.240 --> 1:15:50.960
<v Speaker 3>I thought it was interesting the absolutely unceremonious dumping of

1:15:51.000 --> 1:15:53.519
<v Speaker 3>Stephan's corpse where they just like throw them over a

1:15:53.560 --> 1:15:54.719
<v Speaker 3>wall under the road.

1:15:55.200 --> 1:15:57.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, they're just done with him. Yeah.

1:15:57.640 --> 1:16:00.280
<v Speaker 3>So after this, Valerie and the Countess escape the scene

1:16:00.280 --> 1:16:03.040
<v Speaker 3>of the crime in the Countess's car, with Valerie driving,

1:16:03.600 --> 1:16:06.439
<v Speaker 3>and the Countess is becoming desperate that they've they've got

1:16:06.439 --> 1:16:09.559
<v Speaker 3>to get to safety before daylight. But they don't make it.

1:16:09.640 --> 1:16:12.599
<v Speaker 3>And so here we get to the ending where where

1:16:12.640 --> 1:16:15.080
<v Speaker 3>I think the sun is rising and coming through the trees.

1:16:15.120 --> 1:16:17.719
<v Speaker 3>They're like driving along a road that's lined by trees,

1:16:18.040 --> 1:16:21.040
<v Speaker 3>and as the sun comes in, Valerie is blinded and

1:16:21.120 --> 1:16:25.479
<v Speaker 3>wrecks the car. Questionable whether she meant to wreck the

1:16:25.520 --> 1:16:27.400
<v Speaker 3>car or not, I couldn't quite tell. I don't know

1:16:27.400 --> 1:16:28.439
<v Speaker 3>if you have thoughts about that.

1:16:28.720 --> 1:16:32.800
<v Speaker 2>I interpreted it as accidental, but I think this is

1:16:32.840 --> 1:16:34.720
<v Speaker 2>an unacceptable read as well.

1:16:34.960 --> 1:16:38.439
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, either way, Valerie is I think she was wearing

1:16:38.439 --> 1:16:42.120
<v Speaker 3>her seat belt and she is okay. But the Countess

1:16:42.520 --> 1:16:45.920
<v Speaker 3>is thrown through the windshield and impaled through the heart

1:16:45.960 --> 1:16:48.680
<v Speaker 3>on a branch from a fallen tree, and then she

1:16:48.800 --> 1:16:50.240
<v Speaker 3>catches fire and explodes.

1:16:50.880 --> 1:16:54.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It's pretty stunning and again improbable in one sense,

1:16:54.360 --> 1:16:57.880
<v Speaker 2>but also it feels like destiny. And there are some

1:16:58.000 --> 1:17:00.880
<v Speaker 2>dialogue lines from the Countess earlier kind of allude to this.

1:17:01.000 --> 1:17:04.840
<v Speaker 2>She talks about about like death following her, like death

1:17:04.920 --> 1:17:07.120
<v Speaker 2>is always coming for her, and like this is a

1:17:07.160 --> 1:17:09.960
<v Speaker 2>scene where death catches up and claims her, and so

1:17:10.000 --> 1:17:13.720
<v Speaker 2>she seems like a little shocked, but also you know,

1:17:14.360 --> 1:17:17.240
<v Speaker 2>realizing as well that like this, this was always going

1:17:17.280 --> 1:17:18.280
<v Speaker 2>to happen, and here it is.

1:17:18.640 --> 1:17:21.240
<v Speaker 3>She's been living on credit from the balance of death

1:17:21.320 --> 1:17:25.200
<v Speaker 3>for centuries now, and it's it's been coming. It's finally

1:17:25.240 --> 1:17:26.000
<v Speaker 3>come to collect.

1:17:26.640 --> 1:17:28.920
<v Speaker 2>But for Valerie though, that's right, son.

1:17:29.320 --> 1:17:32.800
<v Speaker 3>Yes, there is also a coda where Valerie has now

1:17:32.840 --> 1:17:37.000
<v Speaker 3>become a vampire queen and we see her essentially repeating,

1:17:37.520 --> 1:17:40.680
<v Speaker 3>repeating what the Countess did to them. We see her

1:17:41.000 --> 1:17:43.479
<v Speaker 3>making friends with a young man and a young woman

1:17:43.560 --> 1:17:47.040
<v Speaker 3>at a luxury resort, these nice hot people dressed up

1:17:47.400 --> 1:17:51.160
<v Speaker 3>in like tennis clothes, the tennis rackets, and she she

1:17:51.280 --> 1:17:52.240
<v Speaker 3>is recruiting them.

1:17:52.280 --> 1:17:56.040
<v Speaker 2>It seems like she's the new bathroom. Yeah. Yeah, And

1:17:56.080 --> 1:17:58.519
<v Speaker 2>it leaves us and this is the end of the picture,

1:17:58.560 --> 1:18:01.559
<v Speaker 2>and it leads us to contemplate, like so many things,

1:18:02.080 --> 1:18:04.240
<v Speaker 2>but one thing I kept wondering about is like what

1:18:04.400 --> 1:18:08.120
<v Speaker 2>is the like what did the countess see as her mission,

1:18:08.120 --> 1:18:10.200
<v Speaker 2>and what is Valorie seeing as her mission here when

1:18:10.240 --> 1:18:14.040
<v Speaker 2>she sees two young people, like is is she identifying

1:18:15.160 --> 1:18:19.160
<v Speaker 2>like a woman that she wants to free from from

1:18:19.280 --> 1:18:23.040
<v Speaker 2>a dominating relationship? Is it like a you know, an

1:18:23.160 --> 1:18:27.680
<v Speaker 2>unending war against patriarchy? Is it? But is it? Or

1:18:27.720 --> 1:18:29.519
<v Speaker 2>is it something else? It's just like here is just

1:18:29.720 --> 1:18:32.000
<v Speaker 2>there is here's an attractive person that I want to

1:18:32.040 --> 1:18:35.240
<v Speaker 2>dominate with my will, Like, you know, where where is

1:18:35.240 --> 1:18:37.880
<v Speaker 2>the domination? Where is the liberation? How does it all

1:18:37.880 --> 1:18:39.360
<v Speaker 2>come together in this picture?

1:18:39.520 --> 1:18:42.320
<v Speaker 3>Good question. I think that is somewhat left open mm

1:18:42.400 --> 1:18:53.559
<v Speaker 3>hm to talk about a few individual scenes. I wanted

1:18:53.600 --> 1:18:57.400
<v Speaker 3>to dwell for just a moment on the trip to Bruges. Yeah,

1:18:57.439 --> 1:19:00.919
<v Speaker 3>so there's this time when they like read some articles

1:19:00.920 --> 1:19:03.759
<v Speaker 3>in the newspaper about ooh, there have been horrible murders

1:19:03.760 --> 1:19:07.840
<v Speaker 3>in Bruges, girls getting their throats slashed. Uh, And then

1:19:08.160 --> 1:19:09.599
<v Speaker 3>what do you know, It's time to do a little

1:19:09.640 --> 1:19:11.800
<v Speaker 3>day trip. Let's go to Bruges. So they go there,

1:19:12.840 --> 1:19:15.000
<v Speaker 3>they do a boat ride on the canals, and then

1:19:15.040 --> 1:19:17.120
<v Speaker 3>they just stop to look at a murder scene, like

1:19:17.240 --> 1:19:19.559
<v Speaker 3>the police are around a house and a body is

1:19:19.600 --> 1:19:23.400
<v Speaker 3>being brought out, and Stephan is just obsessed. He's like

1:19:23.560 --> 1:19:26.960
<v Speaker 3>insatiably curious to get up close and see the flesh

1:19:26.960 --> 1:19:30.080
<v Speaker 3>of the corpse. There's this older man there who's telling

1:19:30.120 --> 1:19:32.080
<v Speaker 3>him the details of the crimes, and it turns out

1:19:32.120 --> 1:19:34.240
<v Speaker 3>this is the inspector guy who's been on the trail

1:19:34.320 --> 1:19:37.320
<v Speaker 3>of the countess. Are we to understand I think that

1:19:37.360 --> 1:19:39.639
<v Speaker 3>the countess is responsible for these murders?

1:19:39.720 --> 1:19:41.880
<v Speaker 2>I believe, so yeah, there's some illusion later on to

1:19:41.960 --> 1:19:44.360
<v Speaker 2>the fact that she has been in bruses recently and

1:19:44.680 --> 1:19:47.240
<v Speaker 2>was clearly feasting.

1:19:48.000 --> 1:19:51.799
<v Speaker 3>So Stephan is he gets really absorbed as the girl's

1:19:51.880 --> 1:19:54.080
<v Speaker 3>body is taken by under a sheet, though her hand

1:19:54.200 --> 1:19:56.679
<v Speaker 3>keeps falling out and then they keep stuffing it back

1:19:56.720 --> 1:19:59.120
<v Speaker 3>under the sheet. But he's so wrapped up that he

1:19:59.320 --> 1:20:02.400
<v Speaker 3>like freaks out and he hits Valerie when she interferes

1:20:02.439 --> 1:20:06.960
<v Speaker 3>with him. And so when they're on the bus on

1:20:07.040 --> 1:20:10.240
<v Speaker 3>the way back, Valerie says to him, Stephan, I'm frightened,

1:20:10.280 --> 1:20:13.240
<v Speaker 3>and he says, of what she says of you, and

1:20:13.280 --> 1:20:16.000
<v Speaker 3>he's dismissive. He says, don't be ridiculous. I was just

1:20:16.120 --> 1:20:20.080
<v Speaker 3>looking like everyone else, and Valerie says, don't lie to yourself.

1:20:20.160 --> 1:20:23.639
<v Speaker 3>You were pleased. It gave you pleasure. You actually enjoyed

1:20:23.680 --> 1:20:27.240
<v Speaker 3>to see that dead girl's body, And Stephan says, and

1:20:27.320 --> 1:20:30.720
<v Speaker 3>you enjoyed telling me. We're getting to know each other,

1:20:32.320 --> 1:20:36.439
<v Speaker 3>which is interesting because it's this dark dynamic where I

1:20:36.439 --> 1:20:39.840
<v Speaker 3>think he's sort of right there. There's something that's she's

1:20:39.880 --> 1:20:43.439
<v Speaker 3>getting fulfillment out of, like recognizing this about him in

1:20:43.600 --> 1:20:47.800
<v Speaker 3>some way. And then after this conversation, she kind of

1:20:47.920 --> 1:20:51.000
<v Speaker 3>leans into him and then starts trying to get frisky

1:20:51.080 --> 1:20:53.559
<v Speaker 3>on the bus, I think, but Stepan like pushes her

1:20:53.600 --> 1:20:56.479
<v Speaker 3>hand away. And this is one of those scenes where

1:20:56.479 --> 1:20:58.800
<v Speaker 3>there's like it cuts there, and then the next time

1:20:58.840 --> 1:21:00.400
<v Speaker 3>we see them, they're like coming in out of the

1:21:00.479 --> 1:21:04.080
<v Speaker 3>rain and they're like laughing and everything's good again. But

1:21:04.920 --> 1:21:06.639
<v Speaker 3>the next scene, by the way, we should also mention

1:21:06.760 --> 1:21:10.000
<v Speaker 3>because this is the meeting in the lobby where where

1:21:10.400 --> 1:21:12.840
<v Speaker 3>the Countess and our young couple first get to know

1:21:12.920 --> 1:21:15.240
<v Speaker 3>each other. And the Countess when we first meet her here,

1:21:15.280 --> 1:21:17.719
<v Speaker 3>she's sitting in a red velvet chair and she's knitting.

1:21:17.880 --> 1:21:20.880
<v Speaker 3>She has two arn balls with knitting needles, and she's

1:21:20.920 --> 1:21:21.559
<v Speaker 3>going to town.

1:21:22.200 --> 1:21:24.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I love the implied I mean, in a way,

1:21:24.240 --> 1:21:28.439
<v Speaker 2>they're like two vampire fangs. I guess right, Oh I

1:21:28.479 --> 1:21:31.559
<v Speaker 2>didn't think about that. Yeah, now is this also refreshed

1:21:31.560 --> 1:21:35.120
<v Speaker 2>my memories? This also the scene with the bright green drink.

1:21:35.600 --> 1:21:39.959
<v Speaker 3>Yes, okay, yes, we're not there yet, so like at first, first,

1:21:40.000 --> 1:21:41.880
<v Speaker 3>she has a little exchange with the loona a Lona

1:21:42.000 --> 1:21:44.160
<v Speaker 3>comes out and she's like, you know, I'm trying to

1:21:44.240 --> 1:21:45.200
<v Speaker 3>leave you, Countess.

1:21:45.360 --> 1:21:47.240
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to leave you and I'm going to go away.

1:21:47.479 --> 1:21:49.559
<v Speaker 3>She says, let me go away, and the Countess says,

1:21:49.640 --> 1:21:53.000
<v Speaker 3>I never would and you never could. And Alona is like,

1:21:53.040 --> 1:21:55.439
<v Speaker 3>but you can have them, the new ones, the beautiful ones.

1:21:55.600 --> 1:21:58.200
<v Speaker 3>With them, you don't need me anymore. And the Countess says,

1:21:58.240 --> 1:22:01.240
<v Speaker 3>without me, you'd have no life. And Delna says, you

1:22:01.320 --> 1:22:04.439
<v Speaker 3>call this a life. But the Countess again is just

1:22:04.520 --> 1:22:06.960
<v Speaker 3>kind of cold to her, unfeeling to her needs. And

1:22:07.280 --> 1:22:11.639
<v Speaker 3>the Countess meets Stefan and Valerie as they come in

1:22:11.680 --> 1:22:14.639
<v Speaker 3>from Bruges and invites them for drinks in the lounge.

1:22:15.400 --> 1:22:17.200
<v Speaker 3>I like the part where she kind of fusses over

1:22:17.240 --> 1:22:19.680
<v Speaker 3>them being wet from the rain. She's like, oh no, no,

1:22:19.720 --> 1:22:21.920
<v Speaker 3>you must go up and get yourselves dry clothes. If

1:22:21.960 --> 1:22:23.719
<v Speaker 3>you came down with the slightest bit of a cold

1:22:23.760 --> 1:22:27.479
<v Speaker 3>I'd never be able to forgive myself. She also demands

1:22:27.520 --> 1:22:29.120
<v Speaker 3>that Pierre bring them hot rum.

1:22:29.600 --> 1:22:32.559
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, so they get hot rum, and yeah, she

1:22:32.680 --> 1:22:35.800
<v Speaker 2>gets this bright green drink that I think a lot

1:22:35.840 --> 1:22:41.240
<v Speaker 2>of you would recognize as a grasshopper. But in one

1:22:41.280 --> 1:22:43.120
<v Speaker 2>of the extras where they were talking about this, they

1:22:43.160 --> 1:22:45.599
<v Speaker 2>referred to it as an Alexander, and I was looking

1:22:45.640 --> 1:22:48.120
<v Speaker 2>it up, and they're different like Alexander drinks, not all

1:22:48.160 --> 1:22:52.200
<v Speaker 2>of which are green summer green, and I get the

1:22:52.200 --> 1:22:55.080
<v Speaker 2>impression it's essentially the same as a grasshopper. I don't know.

1:22:55.080 --> 1:22:59.080
<v Speaker 2>Once that much cream dement is in something, I think

1:22:59.120 --> 1:23:03.800
<v Speaker 2>we're all these drinks are the same, equally undrinkable by

1:23:03.880 --> 1:23:05.040
<v Speaker 2>humans or vampires.

1:23:05.240 --> 1:23:08.080
<v Speaker 3>I considered trying to make myself one of these this week,

1:23:08.600 --> 1:23:10.439
<v Speaker 3>but I was not it. I didn't have time to

1:23:10.439 --> 1:23:12.360
<v Speaker 3>go out to the store and get the ingredients needed.

1:23:13.120 --> 1:23:16.000
<v Speaker 2>No shame on anyone who enjoys a good grasshopper, but

1:23:16.040 --> 1:23:18.080
<v Speaker 2>it's it's never been my beverage of choice.

1:23:18.400 --> 1:23:20.160
<v Speaker 3>I don't know what I would do with the rest

1:23:20.160 --> 1:23:21.320
<v Speaker 3>of the bottle of a crim dement.

1:23:21.800 --> 1:23:24.840
<v Speaker 2>It would it would outlive you. That's the tragedy of

1:23:24.840 --> 1:23:26.960
<v Speaker 2>getting a bottle of crim dementth is like you know

1:23:27.080 --> 1:23:30.080
<v Speaker 2>that this will have to be passed on to another generation,

1:23:30.160 --> 1:23:32.880
<v Speaker 2>and there's you know, it's it's like seeing an ancient

1:23:33.000 --> 1:23:34.920
<v Speaker 2>vampire queen walk into your parlor.

1:23:35.120 --> 1:23:37.439
<v Speaker 3>It's like having a vampire lover. They'll be around when

1:23:37.479 --> 1:23:38.160
<v Speaker 3>you're gone.

1:23:38.240 --> 1:23:42.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. But I also love how she never drinks this

1:23:42.320 --> 1:23:45.519
<v Speaker 2>beverage and then eventually just hands it to Alona, who

1:23:45.560 --> 1:23:49.599
<v Speaker 2>just dumps it into a potted plant, which seemed even

1:23:49.680 --> 1:23:52.200
<v Speaker 2>worse right because like other drinks, you can dump dump

1:23:52.200 --> 1:23:55.120
<v Speaker 2>into a plant and it's like, Okay, that plant probably

1:23:55.160 --> 1:23:57.800
<v Speaker 2>doesn't need a gin and tonic, but very well. But

1:23:57.840 --> 1:24:01.200
<v Speaker 2>this is like a bright green, clumpy beverage.

1:24:01.520 --> 1:24:07.840
<v Speaker 3>It's made with heavy cream. Yeah, but oh yeah yeah.

1:24:07.880 --> 1:24:10.040
<v Speaker 3>So they have this whole conversation and it goes to

1:24:10.040 --> 1:24:12.519
<v Speaker 3>a bunch of different places. She's she's so kind of

1:24:14.680 --> 1:24:18.200
<v Speaker 3>coy and coquettish in a way, Like she she's talking

1:24:18.200 --> 1:24:21.240
<v Speaker 3>about how, you know, oh, I have to say whatever

1:24:21.280 --> 1:24:21.759
<v Speaker 3>I'm thinking.

1:24:21.800 --> 1:24:23.439
<v Speaker 2>I just can't keep it to myself. You know.

1:24:23.640 --> 1:24:27.600
<v Speaker 3>The Archduke said to me, Elizabeth, you are an innocent.

1:24:28.680 --> 1:24:29.519
<v Speaker 2>And yeah.

1:24:29.840 --> 1:24:31.720
<v Speaker 3>She also talks about how she hates it when there's

1:24:31.720 --> 1:24:34.519
<v Speaker 3>no one around. It's so lonely. She's the opposite of Pierre.

1:24:35.640 --> 1:24:39.559
<v Speaker 3>But let's see. Oh, this scene eventually works it up

1:24:39.600 --> 1:24:43.360
<v Speaker 3>to the spot where Valerie storms out. Well well, like

1:24:43.439 --> 1:24:47.320
<v Speaker 3>the Countess and Steffan are going wild about the mutilation stories.

1:24:48.560 --> 1:24:51.400
<v Speaker 3>But this also leads up to that moment I mentioned

1:24:51.400 --> 1:24:54.200
<v Speaker 3>earlier that is so such a good horror moment where

1:24:54.320 --> 1:24:57.080
<v Speaker 3>Valerie goes back to her room alone because you know,

1:24:57.120 --> 1:24:59.960
<v Speaker 3>her husband's like getting busy with the Countess about talking

1:25:00.040 --> 1:25:03.640
<v Speaker 3>about getting cutting people's fingers off, and she goes up

1:25:03.680 --> 1:25:06.519
<v Speaker 3>to her room alone and suddenly Alona comes in at

1:25:06.520 --> 1:25:09.320
<v Speaker 3>the balcony, I think, wanting to drink her blood, but

1:25:09.400 --> 1:25:14.479
<v Speaker 3>she's like naked and doing this weird ballerina pose and

1:25:14.960 --> 1:25:18.200
<v Speaker 3>we hear Valerie scream. But then when we come to

1:25:18.240 --> 1:25:21.200
<v Speaker 3>her later, she's like in bed and you don't know

1:25:21.240 --> 1:25:23.760
<v Speaker 3>what happened in between. Also, when we see Alona later,

1:25:23.880 --> 1:25:27.559
<v Speaker 3>she's like leaning naked over a toilet and vomiting. I think,

1:25:28.160 --> 1:25:31.559
<v Speaker 3>so it's like, what is what happened? While while they

1:25:31.560 --> 1:25:33.960
<v Speaker 3>were off screen it's not quite clear, it seems like

1:25:34.160 --> 1:25:35.120
<v Speaker 3>something happened.

1:25:35.600 --> 1:25:38.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe alone is just

1:25:38.840 --> 1:25:43.439
<v Speaker 2>sick from not feeding something to that. Maybe. But then yeah,

1:25:43.479 --> 1:25:46.200
<v Speaker 2>the countess comes in chastises and like tells her like,

1:25:46.240 --> 1:25:49.519
<v Speaker 2>oh you couldn't wait, could you? And so forth, let's

1:25:49.520 --> 1:25:50.040
<v Speaker 2>see anything.

1:25:50.080 --> 1:25:51.880
<v Speaker 3>Oh we said we were going to say a little

1:25:51.880 --> 1:25:55.479
<v Speaker 3>bit more about the call with quote mother this character.

1:25:55.720 --> 1:25:57.880
<v Speaker 3>One thing I had to say about the scene is

1:25:57.960 --> 1:26:00.000
<v Speaker 3>not at all about the themes. I was curious how

1:26:00.080 --> 1:26:03.000
<v Speaker 3>the phone call was gonna work. Is the butler brings

1:26:03.040 --> 1:26:06.080
<v Speaker 3>the telephone out to the conservatory on a platter, like it's.

1:26:05.960 --> 1:26:07.240
<v Speaker 2>Almost not slunged into anything.

1:26:07.280 --> 1:26:09.320
<v Speaker 3>It's not plugged into anything, And I was like, where's

1:26:09.320 --> 1:26:11.800
<v Speaker 3>the cord? I was like, this is unrealistic. But then

1:26:12.000 --> 1:26:15.160
<v Speaker 3>it all came around because the butler kneels down, gives

1:26:15.200 --> 1:26:17.640
<v Speaker 3>the phone, hands the phone over, and then plugs the

1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:20.080
<v Speaker 3>phone into a jack in the floor. I was like, Oh,

1:26:20.120 --> 1:26:22.400
<v Speaker 3>that's how they do it. They're just jacks everywhere. You

1:26:22.479 --> 1:26:24.519
<v Speaker 3>plug it in, wherever you bring it. That's smart.

1:26:24.880 --> 1:26:28.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it took so much work to have a phone

1:26:28.280 --> 1:26:29.920
<v Speaker 2>call in those days. Yeah.

1:26:29.960 --> 1:26:34.920
<v Speaker 3>But anyway, seriously, when the conversation begins, the surprise is

1:26:34.960 --> 1:26:38.559
<v Speaker 3>it shows this this older middle aged man who's like

1:26:38.960 --> 1:26:41.439
<v Speaker 3>you know, he's in a hammock in the conservatory, surrounded

1:26:41.439 --> 1:26:43.760
<v Speaker 3>by beautiful plants and flowers, and he's like on a

1:26:43.800 --> 1:26:47.400
<v Speaker 3>pink and purple pillow and he's wearing a scarf, and

1:26:47.439 --> 1:26:49.479
<v Speaker 3>he says on the phone, he's like, Steffan, I hope

1:26:49.479 --> 1:26:53.759
<v Speaker 3>you didn't do anything foolish in Switzerland, and Stefan breaks

1:26:53.800 --> 1:26:57.559
<v Speaker 3>the news that he got married, and there is kind

1:26:57.600 --> 1:27:01.720
<v Speaker 3>of derision and cruel amuse meant in the response it's

1:27:01.760 --> 1:27:03.800
<v Speaker 3>just kind of like, oh, what a nice surprise. What

1:27:03.840 --> 1:27:06.920
<v Speaker 3>you did wasn't foolish, it was merely unrealistic.

1:27:07.200 --> 1:27:08.920
<v Speaker 2>What in the world would we do with her?

1:27:09.680 --> 1:27:12.320
<v Speaker 3>And he, you know, he says, he says, like when

1:27:12.320 --> 1:27:15.200
<v Speaker 3>she hears about us, oh, I hate to think about that,

1:27:15.560 --> 1:27:19.120
<v Speaker 3>kind of seemingly threatening him or or something. But it's

1:27:19.400 --> 1:27:22.680
<v Speaker 3>never made fully explicit what he means here. You just

1:27:22.760 --> 1:27:25.400
<v Speaker 3>have to kind of read the scene and make your

1:27:25.439 --> 1:27:28.840
<v Speaker 3>own interpretation. But he ends saying, be sure to tell

1:27:28.920 --> 1:27:33.599
<v Speaker 3>that young woman that mother sends regards. And then after

1:27:33.640 --> 1:27:36.240
<v Speaker 3>the call of course, this is when we see Stephan

1:27:36.479 --> 1:27:40.800
<v Speaker 3>first turn really violent with Valerie. And it's interesting, like,

1:27:40.880 --> 1:27:43.559
<v Speaker 3>before the violence actually starts, you see these kind of

1:27:43.600 --> 1:27:47.240
<v Speaker 3>two waves come over him that I think are interesting

1:27:47.280 --> 1:27:50.000
<v Speaker 3>in the performance, like you see you see him by

1:27:50.080 --> 1:27:55.559
<v Speaker 3>turns internalize his feelings and then a change happens, and

1:27:55.600 --> 1:27:59.160
<v Speaker 3>then he externalizes them and then that's when he becomes violent.

1:27:59.800 --> 1:28:03.439
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, I think it's very interesting here that again

1:28:03.640 --> 1:28:08.559
<v Speaker 2>mother is portrayed as a male character, and yet the

1:28:08.600 --> 1:28:12.000
<v Speaker 2>actors were originally not told this detail. In fact, we're

1:28:12.240 --> 1:28:16.120
<v Speaker 2>left to to infer that it was a female character,

1:28:16.160 --> 1:28:19.280
<v Speaker 2>perhaps the character's mother, that he actual mother that he

1:28:19.360 --> 1:28:23.280
<v Speaker 2>was on the phone with. So, you know, it's it's

1:28:23.320 --> 1:28:25.280
<v Speaker 2>it's an interesting exercise to try and figure out, like

1:28:25.320 --> 1:28:28.000
<v Speaker 2>why did they make this choice? And my read on

1:28:28.040 --> 1:28:30.600
<v Speaker 2>this is that part of it might be, you know,

1:28:30.600 --> 1:28:33.960
<v Speaker 2>it might come back again to this theme of victimization

1:28:34.080 --> 1:28:36.920
<v Speaker 2>and patriarchal rule. So, you know, we we have our

1:28:37.000 --> 1:28:42.320
<v Speaker 2>character Stephan here who is seemingly like both a perpetrator

1:28:42.400 --> 1:28:46.000
<v Speaker 2>and a victim of patriarchal power, Like there is this

1:28:46.600 --> 1:28:49.880
<v Speaker 2>older man in his life that he is he at

1:28:49.960 --> 1:28:55.080
<v Speaker 2>least feels control by and is rebelling against and has

1:28:55.120 --> 1:28:57.439
<v Speaker 2>gone out into the world and sort of like found

1:28:57.520 --> 1:28:59.720
<v Speaker 2>someone that maybe on some you know, on some level,

1:28:59.720 --> 1:29:03.519
<v Speaker 2>definitely felt liberating and freeing to be around. But then

1:29:03.600 --> 1:29:06.519
<v Speaker 2>it comes back around to how can I control this

1:29:06.560 --> 1:29:09.800
<v Speaker 2>person and in doing so feel free from how I

1:29:09.840 --> 1:29:14.320
<v Speaker 2>was being control Yeah, and I guess like, like, clearly

1:29:14.920 --> 1:29:19.040
<v Speaker 2>the gender divide is was important to this film's vision,

1:29:19.640 --> 1:29:22.439
<v Speaker 2>with the Countest being kind of like this female force

1:29:22.439 --> 1:29:27.559
<v Speaker 2>of liberation or another form of domination, and therefore they

1:29:27.720 --> 1:29:30.679
<v Speaker 2>that they thought it was important to have the figure

1:29:30.720 --> 1:29:33.599
<v Speaker 2>that it was controlling Stephan to be you know, equally

1:29:33.600 --> 1:29:38.240
<v Speaker 2>a male force. And therefore, you know, beating into this idea.

1:29:38.400 --> 1:29:42.280
<v Speaker 2>You know that it is patriarchal oppression, that is, that

1:29:42.400 --> 1:29:45.280
<v Speaker 2>is you know, weaving its its roots through everything. But

1:29:45.400 --> 1:29:48.599
<v Speaker 2>at the same time, it's definitely worth noting that there

1:29:48.680 --> 1:29:53.559
<v Speaker 2>are there, definitely do seem to be some homophobic tropes

1:29:53.640 --> 1:29:58.640
<v Speaker 2>wound up in this mother Stephan relationship that were presented

1:29:58.720 --> 1:30:02.920
<v Speaker 2>with and you know, this could have quite possibly been

1:30:03.720 --> 1:30:07.680
<v Speaker 2>incorporated indirectly for a number of reasons, but David J.

1:30:07.800 --> 1:30:11.000
<v Speaker 2>Skall does call it out en VFA vampire. The late

1:30:11.040 --> 1:30:15.160
<v Speaker 2>David Jay Skull was himself openly gay and often wrote

1:30:15.160 --> 1:30:19.679
<v Speaker 2>about the intersect of homophobia, gay culture, and vampire media,

1:30:20.200 --> 1:30:24.480
<v Speaker 2>with observations based on everything from homo eroticism in mainstream

1:30:24.560 --> 1:30:28.880
<v Speaker 2>Dracula films to its overt treatment in counterculture art house

1:30:28.960 --> 1:30:32.559
<v Speaker 2>or even pornographic films that had vampire characters in them.

1:30:33.080 --> 1:30:37.759
<v Speaker 2>And he describes Daughters of Darkness as by saying that quote,

1:30:37.800 --> 1:30:42.000
<v Speaker 2>the politics are ambiguous, if suspiciously homophobic, But the film

1:30:42.000 --> 1:30:44.519
<v Speaker 2>contains a sufficient number of stylish set pieces to have

1:30:44.560 --> 1:30:48.519
<v Speaker 2>earned it the reputation of a minor classic. So again,

1:30:49.400 --> 1:30:50.880
<v Speaker 2>I do tend to agree with schol here. I think

1:30:50.880 --> 1:30:53.559
<v Speaker 2>there are some homophobic tropes wound up in the portrayal

1:30:53.560 --> 1:30:55.720
<v Speaker 2>of this character. I don't know how meant much of

1:30:55.760 --> 1:30:59.919
<v Speaker 2>it was itself directly intentional or kind of a bypropu

1:31:00.439 --> 1:31:03.200
<v Speaker 2>of other things the film was trying to say, and

1:31:03.280 --> 1:31:07.040
<v Speaker 2>maybe just incorporating tropes that were just present everywhere anyway

1:31:07.080 --> 1:31:09.200
<v Speaker 2>in the in the early nineteen seventies and a lot

1:31:09.200 --> 1:31:12.760
<v Speaker 2>of films and storytelling. I think it would have been.

1:31:12.800 --> 1:31:15.720
<v Speaker 2>It's interesting to try to imagine different versions of this

1:31:15.800 --> 1:31:19.320
<v Speaker 2>film where the reveal here of mother was a little different,

1:31:19.400 --> 1:31:22.920
<v Speaker 2>Like what if the scene had him talking to an

1:31:22.920 --> 1:31:26.760
<v Speaker 2>older woman that was that was his actual mother, or

1:31:27.240 --> 1:31:29.920
<v Speaker 2>an older woman or even a woman his own age.

1:31:30.680 --> 1:31:35.760
<v Speaker 2>That seems to be a past romantic partner who is

1:31:35.840 --> 1:31:38.760
<v Speaker 2>domineering and he's trying to escape from. Like, what would

1:31:38.800 --> 1:31:40.479
<v Speaker 2>it have changed that much? Would it have had that

1:31:40.560 --> 1:31:43.960
<v Speaker 2>much of an impact or what if regardless, what if

1:31:44.000 --> 1:31:48.200
<v Speaker 2>there was like some element of tenderness to the relationship

1:31:48.240 --> 1:31:50.080
<v Speaker 2>implied as well, because what we see here is just

1:31:50.120 --> 1:31:51.439
<v Speaker 2>a relationship of domination.

1:31:52.280 --> 1:31:55.559
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean you could imagine a version of the

1:31:55.600 --> 1:31:57.920
<v Speaker 3>scene where he makes the call and the character is

1:31:57.960 --> 1:32:00.920
<v Speaker 3>the same, but the character is like anger, you know,

1:32:01.240 --> 1:32:05.599
<v Speaker 3>is like showing like real like a sense of having

1:32:05.640 --> 1:32:09.080
<v Speaker 3>been betrayed or something that Stephan went and married somebody else.

1:32:09.880 --> 1:32:13.360
<v Speaker 3>But you don't get that. There's just kind of a

1:32:13.840 --> 1:32:18.479
<v Speaker 3>confident dismissal of him, you know, just like kind of

1:32:18.520 --> 1:32:23.280
<v Speaker 3>like this, this is silly. I'm disappointed in you. You'll

1:32:23.320 --> 1:32:24.639
<v Speaker 3>be back under my thumb soon.

1:32:25.160 --> 1:32:28.479
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, things like this have happened before. This may be

1:32:28.560 --> 1:32:32.680
<v Speaker 2>more severe, but I'm not surprised. Yeah, you'll be back

1:32:32.760 --> 1:32:33.200
<v Speaker 2>next week.

1:32:33.479 --> 1:32:35.719
<v Speaker 3>And it's in fact, it's kind of like the exchange

1:32:35.720 --> 1:32:37.040
<v Speaker 3>with Alona and the Countess.

1:32:37.120 --> 1:32:39.160
<v Speaker 2>Yes, when Alona, I mean there are.

1:32:39.120 --> 1:32:41.160
<v Speaker 3>Multiple things like that, like when she threatens to leave

1:32:41.160 --> 1:32:44.640
<v Speaker 3>and the Countess almost completely ignores her, it's just like, yeah, yeah, no,

1:32:44.800 --> 1:32:47.479
<v Speaker 3>you need me, You're not going anywhere, Or in the

1:32:47.479 --> 1:32:49.320
<v Speaker 3>scene where she says I want to die and the

1:32:49.360 --> 1:32:51.400
<v Speaker 3>Countess just says, the light's hurting my eyes.

1:32:52.600 --> 1:32:55.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. There's so many ways that the relationships that these

1:32:55.080 --> 1:32:58.320
<v Speaker 2>characters have mirror each other, the living and the undead.

1:32:59.000 --> 1:33:02.320
<v Speaker 3>Another kind of interesting mirrorring that's worth talking about is

1:33:02.360 --> 1:33:07.160
<v Speaker 3>how Valerie's romance in a way with the Countess, though

1:33:07.200 --> 1:33:10.919
<v Speaker 3>it seems to be a kind of maybe magically controlled romance,

1:33:11.800 --> 1:33:15.640
<v Speaker 3>because when the Countess is first like trying to seduce Valerie,

1:33:16.520 --> 1:33:18.880
<v Speaker 3>the Countess says what she says many times. She says,

1:33:18.920 --> 1:33:20.920
<v Speaker 3>you must be nice to me. Soon you will love

1:33:20.960 --> 1:33:23.439
<v Speaker 3>me as I love you now, and Valerie says, I

1:33:23.520 --> 1:33:28.160
<v Speaker 3>despise you. You're disgusting now. Maybe you could think that Valerie

1:33:28.280 --> 1:33:32.280
<v Speaker 3>is I don't know, maybe covering up her feelings. Maybe

1:33:32.280 --> 1:33:35.439
<v Speaker 3>that's not really how she feels, but I don't know.

1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:37.479
<v Speaker 3>I take it as that there is some amount of

1:33:37.600 --> 1:33:41.560
<v Speaker 3>magical coercion of some kind going on as she continues.

1:33:41.600 --> 1:33:45.559
<v Speaker 3>She falls for the Countess after this, but there's like

1:33:45.600 --> 1:33:48.400
<v Speaker 3>a similar arc to how she seems to fall for

1:33:48.479 --> 1:33:51.640
<v Speaker 3>Stefan in the first place, and then there's a similarity

1:33:51.800 --> 1:33:55.719
<v Speaker 3>when like by the end of the movie, Valerie first

1:33:55.800 --> 1:33:59.320
<v Speaker 3>becomes the countess's new Ilona, and then she kills the

1:33:59.360 --> 1:34:04.760
<v Speaker 3>countess becomes the new Countess herself. Yeah, so yeah, it

1:34:04.760 --> 1:34:07.160
<v Speaker 3>almost it's kind of the sith lord thing right there.

1:34:07.280 --> 1:34:10.360
<v Speaker 3>There are always two and then one kills the other. Yeah,

1:34:10.479 --> 1:34:12.679
<v Speaker 3>it makes you wonder how many times this has happened

1:34:12.680 --> 1:34:16.440
<v Speaker 3>as well. We since that the countess has killed many Elona's,

1:34:16.479 --> 1:34:20.160
<v Speaker 3>but was the countess once some other countesses Ilona.

1:34:20.680 --> 1:34:23.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. And

1:34:23.880 --> 1:34:25.680
<v Speaker 2>the magical coersion. I do want to come back to

1:34:25.720 --> 1:34:29.400
<v Speaker 2>that scene where where they end up finally killing and

1:34:29.439 --> 1:34:33.760
<v Speaker 2>feasting on stuff, and again we have the crystal the

1:34:33.800 --> 1:34:36.639
<v Speaker 2>crystal glass that they press over his face. But also

1:34:36.800 --> 1:34:38.960
<v Speaker 2>this is the sequence I believe where she's wearing that

1:34:39.120 --> 1:34:43.680
<v Speaker 2>just magnificent sequin gown. It's like a disco ball and

1:34:43.720 --> 1:34:46.080
<v Speaker 2>the light like they the way they lit this scene,

1:34:46.120 --> 1:34:50.320
<v Speaker 2>like the light is just it's just just bouncing off

1:34:50.360 --> 1:34:53.000
<v Speaker 2>of her, and you really get this sense that she

1:34:53.240 --> 1:34:57.880
<v Speaker 2>is like this bewildering lamp. She is like a lighthouse

1:34:58.640 --> 1:35:01.559
<v Speaker 2>that has completely and sore both of them. But also

1:35:01.720 --> 1:35:03.879
<v Speaker 2>the movie is packed with mirrors.

1:35:03.920 --> 1:35:08.200
<v Speaker 3>Almost almost every scene or every other scene has a mirror,

1:35:08.200 --> 1:35:11.920
<v Speaker 3>and its constantly characters looking in mirrors or being across

1:35:11.920 --> 1:35:14.559
<v Speaker 3>from mirrors. And in this final scene here with the

1:35:14.600 --> 1:35:18.880
<v Speaker 3>three of them, the Countess becomes a mirror. It's like

1:35:18.960 --> 1:35:22.400
<v Speaker 3>she her body is a disco ball mirror from top

1:35:22.439 --> 1:35:25.479
<v Speaker 3>to bottom. It's reflecting all of delight, and it's reflecting them,

1:35:26.080 --> 1:35:28.559
<v Speaker 3>And it's kind of that that she shows them what

1:35:28.600 --> 1:35:29.559
<v Speaker 3>they are in a way.

1:35:30.160 --> 1:35:32.720
<v Speaker 2>It's fabulous. Yeah, it's it is a great movie to

1:35:33.439 --> 1:35:36.519
<v Speaker 2>read and reread. It has so many you know, like

1:35:36.520 --> 1:35:38.280
<v Speaker 2>I say, it feels like it's speaking to you in

1:35:38.320 --> 1:35:41.639
<v Speaker 2>some sort of a code and you're left to decipher

1:35:41.680 --> 1:35:43.840
<v Speaker 2>it in your subsequent viewings and reviewings.

1:35:44.280 --> 1:35:47.200
<v Speaker 3>Also, just I gotta throw it out there, the shot

1:35:47.320 --> 1:35:50.880
<v Speaker 3>where they show her after her body gets thrown out

1:35:50.920 --> 1:35:52.880
<v Speaker 3>of the car in the wreck and she's just hanging

1:35:52.960 --> 1:35:53.960
<v Speaker 3>on that branch.

1:35:54.000 --> 1:35:57.720
<v Speaker 2>It looks amazing. Yeah, yeahs as does that shot that

1:35:57.720 --> 1:36:00.479
<v Speaker 2>we alluded to much earlier in the episode where she

1:36:00.600 --> 1:36:03.559
<v Speaker 2>finally raises up her cape there on the beach. Oh yeah,

1:36:03.600 --> 1:36:07.479
<v Speaker 2>and it's like she has bat wings, revealing her vampiric nature,

1:36:07.520 --> 1:36:10.000
<v Speaker 2>at least to us the viewer, and it's just so

1:36:10.000 --> 1:36:13.600
<v Speaker 2>splendid and yet to be clear. She's one of the

1:36:13.640 --> 1:36:16.680
<v Speaker 2>villains of the piece, but you can't help but love

1:36:16.680 --> 1:36:19.559
<v Speaker 2>her style. Is everybody a villain by the end? I

1:36:19.600 --> 1:36:20.840
<v Speaker 2>think Valerie.

1:36:20.520 --> 1:36:22.439
<v Speaker 3>Seems to be up to no good by the end.

1:36:22.680 --> 1:36:26.680
<v Speaker 3>So the characters that don't start off villains become villains everyone.

1:36:27.240 --> 1:36:30.000
<v Speaker 3>All four of our main characters have killed or tried

1:36:30.040 --> 1:36:34.960
<v Speaker 3>to kill somebody. So yeah, nobody's completely squeaky clean here,

1:36:35.000 --> 1:36:39.680
<v Speaker 3>are they? Just Pierre, Pierre, poor Pierre. Oh yeah, I

1:36:39.800 --> 1:36:43.400
<v Speaker 3>like Pierre. Okay, well, I guess that's Daughters of Darkness.

1:36:44.080 --> 1:36:45.800
<v Speaker 2>All right, we're gonna go and close it out here,

1:36:45.800 --> 1:36:48.519
<v Speaker 2>but we'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this picture.

1:36:48.880 --> 1:36:53.519
<v Speaker 2>If you have the story about your history with Daughters

1:36:53.520 --> 1:36:55.240
<v Speaker 2>of Darkness, if you have thoughts and some of the

1:36:55.240 --> 1:36:57.080
<v Speaker 2>themes we've discussed here right in, we would love to

1:36:57.120 --> 1:37:00.280
<v Speaker 2>hear from you. Let's see, just to remind her that stuff.

1:37:00.280 --> 1:37:02.640
<v Speaker 2>To Blow Your Mind is primarily a science, science, and

1:37:02.680 --> 1:37:05.400
<v Speaker 2>culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but

1:37:05.439 --> 1:37:07.720
<v Speaker 2>on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just

1:37:07.720 --> 1:37:10.720
<v Speaker 2>talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema as

1:37:10.720 --> 1:37:13.439
<v Speaker 2>an experiment. Right now, we are also running Weird House

1:37:13.439 --> 1:37:16.280
<v Speaker 2>Cinema as its own playlist, which means it will come

1:37:16.400 --> 1:37:19.360
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1:37:19.400 --> 1:37:22.439
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1:37:22.479 --> 1:37:24.720
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1:37:28.000 --> 1:37:30.040
<v Speaker 2>So try it out, tell us what you think, what

1:37:30.080 --> 1:37:32.559
<v Speaker 2>your thoughts are on it. Also, if you want to

1:37:32.680 --> 1:37:36.639
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1:37:36.720 --> 1:37:38.360
<v Speaker 2>us there, take a look at all the films we've

1:37:38.400 --> 1:37:40.240
<v Speaker 2>covered over the years, and sometimes a peek ahead at

1:37:40.240 --> 1:37:41.960
<v Speaker 2>what comes next. Huge things.

1:37:42.000 --> 1:37:45.519
<v Speaker 3>As always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

1:37:45.560 --> 1:37:47.000
<v Speaker 3>you would like to get in touch with us with

1:37:47.120 --> 1:37:49.479
<v Speaker 3>feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1:37:49.520 --> 1:37:51.920
<v Speaker 3>topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1:37:51.920 --> 1:37:54.680
<v Speaker 3>can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

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<v Speaker 3>Mind dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.