![]() ![]() Here Jordan, costume designer Consolota Boyle, production designer Simon Elliot, and genius director of photography Sean Bobbit (" Hunger") conspire to hold us in thrall every time Arterton appears. In the era of superheroes tossing around CGI skyscrapers, we forget the visceral power of human beauty, ardently photographed. She's built for it: Clara is a luscious Amazonian stunner who doesn't need the powers of hell to put men into a trance. The elder of the duo, Clara ( Gemma Arterton), pays the rent working a profession even older than vampirism. The vamps we're obliged to care about here are a pair of traveling female hustlers who've spent centuries navigating a man's world using their wits and wiles with cruel precision. The plot is almost irrelevant, but the way screenwriter Moira Buffini (adapting her own stage play "A Vampire Story") weaves threads of history, folklore, feminist spirit and universal themes is striking. That's how this bluesy vampire melodrama "Byzantium" worked on me. ![]() Noticing some cake icing smeared on his forearm, she says, "What's that blue shit on your arm?" with irritation melting into concern. Russell's film " The Fighter" where Amy Adams is trying to stay angry and distrustful of her pathetic junkie brother-in-law Christian Bale but her heart can't help but reach out to him when he pleads sincerely for understanding. All I knew going into "Byzantium" was that it marks director Neil Jordan's return to the genre he and novelist Anne Rice helped make viable for Hollywood studios almost twenty years ago, with " Interview with the Vampire." This was not an enticement. I find the entertainment industry's ongoing vampire gold rush, and pop culture's fascination with sexualized gore in general, to be insipid, boring and ghoulish in a trivial way that's unique to folks who haven't experienced much real violence or loss: goth slumber party. What a pleasure it was, then, to be won over by this exquisite, lovely film, in which contemporary characters struggle to suspend their disbelief in vampire lore while Jordan's eye for formal beauty and truthful performances suspends ours. There is a very true moment in David O. ![]()
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