"'Vampyr' is as close as you get to poetry in film." - Guillermo del Toro
This is the story of Allan Gray, a dreamer and wanderer (of some means it would seem, given his nice suit) and seeker of the supernatural. And he finds it. Wandering one day with his butterfly net, he stops at an Inn and is almost immediately dragged (not unwillingly, mind you) into the supernatural events set in motion by the local vampire and her thrall.
It's funny that the first time I saw this film, the print was poor enough that I didn't really even appreciate a story, I thought it was all just dreamy sequences and some goings on. I liked it, but I didn't even realize it
had a narrative. On a second viewing a couple years ago, it made much more sense but I still didn't fully follow it. Oddly, on this third viewing the narrative seemed abundantly clear and I couldn't understand how I ever had trouble following it. Until my friends said they didn't follow it at all and it just seemed kinda dreamy to them.
Maybe that's what I like so much about this movie.
But make no mistake, this is a great little vampire movie. Allan Gray's adventure is a great little story and the way our protagonist becomes intimately wrapped up in this dark and deadly situation acts as an avatar/bridge for the audience themselves, particularly when Gray himself, wanting to help but actually being a bit hapless, seems to become the focus of the danger.
Dreyer's camera is just wonderful in this film. It is a character unto itself. Some of the tracking shots are just hard to be believed given the era and the compositions are always interesting. Dreyer always puts a lot in-frame for the eyes to digest, which is good while characters are reading a book for a significant portion of the film, and you could steal dozens of macabre frames from the good print currently available to decorate for the whole Halloween season. Or just run the movie in the background to spook up your party.
If anyone hasn't seen Vampyr, you should.