Directed by: Ana Lily Amirpour.
Written by: Ana Lily Amirpour.
Starring: Sheila Vand (The Girl), Arash Marandi (Arash), Marshall Manesh (Hossein), Mozhan Marnò (Atti), Dominic Rains (Saeed), Rome Shadanloo (Shaydah), Milad Eghbali (The Street Urchin), Reza Sixo Safai (Rockabilly).
Like
many films by first time directors, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night wears it’s
influences on its sleeve. It’s impossible to watch the film, shot in stark
black and white in Bakersfield, California, and not think of the early works of
Jim Jarmusch – like Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Down by Law (1986). Or
early David Lynch, like Eraserhead (1978). Or, in some of its shots, the work
of Sergio Leone. Or the way in which the male lead is made to look like James
Dean. Or the presence of a poor, young boy which reminds us of the Iranian New
Wave, or even the post WWII Italian neo-realists. And on and on and on the
influences go. Written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, the movie does lean
too heavily on these influences at times – but I didn’t really mind it that
much. Amirpour takes her influences it takes them in some new, different
directions – making a very odd feminist, vampire, western set in Iran, which is
like a lot of films we have seen before – and yet something wholly unique at
the same time. I look forward to see what she does next – when maybe she will
leave some of those influences behind.
The
movie is about two main characters. The first is Arash (Arash Marandi), who
works as a gardener and general handyman, has a sweet 1950s hot rod, and has to
care for his drug addicted father, who has a weakness for prostitutes – Hossein
(Marshall Manesh). He’s deep in debt to Saeed (Dominic Rains), a tattooed pimp,
drug dealer and all around horrible human being, who takes Arash’s car as
payment for his debts, and then abuses the (apparently only) prostitute in his
employ – Atti (Mozhan Marno) – who at 30, is getting old for type of work. The
other main character is known only as The Girl (Seila Vand) – a vampire clocked
in a chador, who sees all, stalks the streets silently, and will kill
repeatedly throughout the movie – but seemingly only men who prey on women. The
Girl is odd in many ways – from her cold eyes, to her room, donned with posters
and images from the 1980s, and listening to music from the same decade. The
movie alternates between these two characters – Arash and The Girl, slowly
bringing them together. And the girl isn’t the only one who sees everything –
there is also a skateboard riding kid (Milad Eghbali), who knows everything
that is going on.
This
is a very visual film – Amirpour doesn’t have a lot of dialogue in the film,
and doesn’t really need it either. Everything she does is told visually, with
some great flourishes (like the way The Girl uses that chador like Dracula uses
his cape). The film is set in the fictional town of Bad City – presumably in
Iran, since everyone is speaking Persian – but a desolate and lonely place,
where there doesn’t seem to be too many people milling around at any one point
– most likely a budgetary constraint, and a symptom of shooting a movie set in
Iran in California, where Iranian extras were most likely in high supply. The
film looks like it was shot on the cheap – and I don’t mean that in a bad way.
Like those early Jarmusch and Lynch films, Amirpour uses her low budget to
great effect – capturing memorable images throughout. The film is more a genre
exercise – but one that crosses genres all over – than a sociopolitical
statement about modern Iran – although the feminist bent to the movie does feel
pointed and on target (but not just about Iran).
The
film is one of the more striking debut films of 2014 – without ever quite being
great. The movie drags at times – its 99 minute runtime is a little too long to
support what is essentially a bare bones plot. But there is so much style here,
that I didn’t much care. The film marks Amirpour is a director to watch. I
cannot wait to see what she does next.
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