Nothing spoils an extravagantly amoral honeymoon like a languorous, immoral vampire. And not just any vampire--1971's Daughters of Darkness features Elizabeth Bathory herself, turning up at the beautiful Hotel Astoria in Belgium in modern times. A lovely film with delicious performances, it stumbles a bit when it tries to mean something or when it drifts into certain conventions of the vampire genre. But the mood and atmosphere it conjures makes it all worthwhile.
A young Englishman who grew up in America, Stefan (John Karlen), has been married to a Swedish woman called Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) for three days on apparently very short acquaintance. We see them having sex on the train through a violet lens filter and each confesses to not loving the other. It's not clear if they truly believe it or if it's the insolent posturing of cocky youth. In any case, Stefan is afraid of telling his mother about their marriage and constantly puts off the phone call. When he finally does make the phone call, we see Stefan has very different reasons for his reluctance than one might expect. It's a plot point that fits in with what seems to be a partial attempt at anti-queer allegory, one that's best ignored.
My god, how beautiful is the Hotel Astoria. I'm happy to say the bulk of the film was shot there. Here, the beautiful couple meet the Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) and her "friend", Ilona (Andrea Rau). Both women give distinctive, intensely attractive, sensuous performances enhanced by director Harry Kumel's compositions.
There's the usual string of murders nearby--victims drained of blood--Stefan accidentally cuts himself while shaving, the concierge (Paul Esser) remembers Elizabeth looking exactly the same when he met her forty years ago--all this standard vampire movie stuff is really unnecessary though it is interesting to see how fascinated Stefan is by the murders. If the movie were just about Elizabeth seducing everyone and driving a wedge between Stefan and Valerie it would be perfectly fine. Maybe the director just didn't know how good he had it.
Seyrig is so great at choosing the most charming, insinuating way of saying things. She accidentally on purpose meets Stefan and Valerie in the lobby and insists they join her for a drink--you can sense the hypothetical accident and an unconcealed deliberateness and desperation under an effortless, breezy self-deprecation. How could they refuse?
And then they meet Ilona who conveys a peculiar mixture of pouty innocence and the solemn wisdom of a lifelong servant. I could've watched these two for many hours.
Daughters of Darkness is available on The Criterion Channel.
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