an ode to NOSFERATU A VENEZIA (1988)

A review at CINEZILLA blog prompted me to seek out and watch NOSFERATU A VENEZIA.

Tired looking, morbid Klaus creates another haunting hero in this expensive looking, baroque and occasionally rambling tale of the ancient vampire curse.

Late 1980's was a bad period for Italian film industry. Shit like ZOMBI 3 was playing in theatres, and masters such as Argento were using awfully inappropriate metal music to score their elegant films. 

It is in such a difficult time that NOSFERATU A VENEZIA was made.

I can think of few Italian films from that era that looked as lush or were as atmospheric as NOSFERATU A VENEZIA.

Considering the fact that no less than three (or, perhaps, five) different directors were involved with the project, NOSFERATU A VENEZIA forms a surprisingly harmonious whole.

Editing doesn't have a rhythm typical of Italian genre productions. We have something a little more elaborate and clearly more ambitious here, but also more confusing. The bloody story of the immortal seems to develop on several time planes at once - very appropriate for a picture that deals with a being outside time.

 

There's a scene of Nosferatu wandering along the shore at night. He encounters some gypsies. Is it another flashback? There's no indication of the epoch in which the episode takes place, not until we see the gypsies' very modern caravans.

Cinematography exhibits that lovely heavy grain and rich colours which characterize the finest European cinema of those times. 

Beauty and poetry aside, NOSFERATU A VENEZIA has undeniable trash appeal. Scenes of Kinski chasing girls through the streets of Venice and ripping clothes off nubile virgins should make fans of wild European cinema cheer.

Kinski is one of very few actors who could make a convincing  vampire. His own face was by 1988 a haunting mask, and didn't need excessive make-up.

Kinski, who looks just as natural and convincing dressed in a period costume as he did when wearing various swanky outfits in his 70's films, dominates every scene he's in. He looks more  like the titular character of Herzog's COBRA VERDE than of NOSFERATU.

The good guys are dull, dim-witted loser types and their failure to deal with the decadent blood-sucker is unsurprising.

Donald Pleasence is cast in a totally redundant part of a cowardly clergyman. Nevertheless, he does get an opportunity to shine in his final scene.

NOSFERATU A VENEZIA is an example of tremendous poetic effect achieved through episodic narration  and one of the more interesting vampire films out there.