Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)

Directed by

Guy Maddin

Genre

horror film, silent film, vampire film

Country

Canada

Runtime

1h 13m

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 51 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is a silent dance film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. It uses the Royal Winnipeg Ballet performance to tell the story, with close-ups and jump cuts. The film emphasizes the xenophobia of the characters towards the vampire.

stylizeddreamlikechoreographedfreneticmelancholiceeriecampysilent-era

What happens

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary is a 2002 TV horror film directed by Guy Maddin, budgeted at $1.7 million and produced for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a dance film documenting a performance by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet adapting Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Maddin elected to shoot the dance film in a fashion uncommon for such films, through close-ups and using jump cuts. Maddin also stayed close to the source material of Stoker's novel, emphasizing the xenophobia in the reactions of the main characters to Dracula (played by Zhang Wei-Qiang). Work on the film deepened but also ended Maddin's collaboration with Deco Dawson, who was credited as editor and associate director. Maddin and Dawson had a falling-out in the wake of the production and have not worked together again. Dawson nevertheless spoke kindly of Maddin's following feature, The Saddest Music in the World. Like most of Maddin's films, Dracula, Pages from a Virgin's Diary is shot in the silent film tradition, complete with title cards and mimicking special effects of the era, such as tinted screen color, shadow play, and vaseline smeared on the camera lens to create a blurry effect. The film is not entirely monochromatic, since computer-generated special effects add bright, acidic colours to tint golden coins, green bank notes, and red blood. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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