Nadja (film)

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Nadja
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMichael Almereyda
Written byMichael Almereyda
Produced byMary Sweeney
Amy Hobby
Starring
CinematographyJim Denault
Edited byDavid Leonard
Music bySimon Fisher Turner
Production
company
Kino Link Company
Distributed byOctober Films
Release dates
  • September 13, 1994 (1994-09-13) (TIFF)
  • September 1, 1995 (1995-09-01) (United States)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million[1]
Box office$443,169

Nadja is a 1994 American

arthouse style.[2]
It received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Count Voivoide Arminius Chousescu Dracula dies with a stake in his heart. His daughter Nadja shows up to claim the body, hoping that his death will free her from the life he has forced on her. She has the body cremated and prepares to take the ashes to Brooklyn and pay a visit to her twin brother Edgar whom she hasn't seen for a long time. Before she leaves, however, she stops for a drink and meets Lucy. Lucy is also feeling a sense of emptiness, so she takes Nadja home. They manage to cheer each other up, and they wind up having sex together.

Van Helsing killed Dracula, and his nephew Jim, Lucy's husband, has to bail him out of jail. Helsing knows that if Dracula's body is not destroyed properly, Dracula will be able to return. When Helsing learns that Dracula's body has been removed from the morgue, he enlists Jim's help.

Meanwhile, Nadja visits Edgar, who is sick, and meets his nurse and live-in lover, Cassandra. Nadja persuades Cassandra to move Edgar to her apartment and plans to help by transfusing him with plasma from the blood of shark embryos. Edgar revives enough to drink some of Nadja's blood. However, Lucy has fallen under Nadja's mesmerism. She leads both Jim and Van Helsing to Edgar's house, where Nadja is staying with Renfield. Edgar stays awake long enough to warn Cassandra that she is in danger and orders her to leave the house. Cassandra, revealed to be Van Helsing's daughter, attempts to escape with Nadja pursuing her, Lucy pursuing Nadja, and Jim pursuing Lucy. Cassandra runs into a gas station, where two burly mechanics attempt to protect her, but Nadja mesmerizes them and kills one of them. A policeman enters the gas station and shoots Nadja in the abdomen.

Edgar, who is improving, unites with the Helsings to stop Nadja. He receives a "psychic fax" from Nadja, telling him that she is injured and must return to Transylvania. She also mentions that she's taking Cassandra with her, prompting Edgar and the Helsings to follow her to Transylvania. As they approach the castle, Nadja begins a transfusion of Cassandra's blood while Cassandra sleeps. While Jim fights with Renfield, Edgar and Helsing drive a stake through Nadja's heart. Lucy is released, Nadja is destroyed, and Cassandra wakes up.

However, not all is as it seems. Nadja narrates the epilogue: "They cut off my head...burned my body...no one knew...no one suspected that I was now alive in Cassandra's body. Edgar and I were married at City Hall...there is a better way to live."

Cast

Production

Nadja was written by Michael Almereyda after a planned project called Fever (centered around Edgar Allan Poe between Almereyda and David Lynch) failed to attract financing.[3] The 1928 surrealist novel Nadja by André Breton served as an inspiration for the thematic approach, with Almereyda also studying several classic vampire films and lore.[3] Even with a comparatively more commercial script than Fever, the production still faced hurdles in acquiring financing due to the decision to film Nadja in black and white rather than color which was deemed necessary as both a cost-saving measure and thematically important.[3] When financing fell through, Lynch financed the entire film himself.[3] To attain a "blurry, out of focus" look to convey the point of view of the living dead, Almereyda shot the film using a Fisher-Price PixelVision camcorder.[3] Almereyda attempted to make the film in a similar style to Roger Corman, with the Corman-produced Poe films a particular source of inspiration for not only style and tone but also frugal film-making.[3] The movie was filmed over the course of five and a half weeks in New York City.[3] An abandoned hospital on Central Park West was used to simulate a Transylvanian castle.[3]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Nadja holds an approval rating of 64% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critics' consensus reads: "Nadja approaches the Dracula legend from an idiosyncratic angle - and with just enough visual style to overcome uneven storytelling."[4]

Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film a rating of two-and-a-half out of four stars, characterizing it as "an example of a genre we can call Deadpan Noir. It's the kind of movie that deals with unspeakable subjects while keeping a certain ironic distance and using dialogue that seems funny, although the characters never seem in on the joke."[5]

References

  1. ISBN 978-1844574407
    .
  2. ^ Vagg, Stephen (October 26, 2019). "Peter Fonda – 10 Phases of Acting". FilmInk. Archived from the original on October 29, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h French, Lawrnece (November 1995). "Vampire Girl". Cinefantastique. Fourth Castle Micromedia. Retrieved July 18, 2023.
  4. ^ "Nadja (1995)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on November 30, 2017. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (September 1, 1995). "Nadja movie review & film summary (1995)". RogerEbert.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2015.

External links

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