Therapy For A Vampire

Vampirism: it’s not all about seducing buxom peasants and playing sparkly baseball games. If you’ve ever baulked at the thought of eternal life and wondered if it might not get a bit dull after a while, you may sympathise with the undead hero of David Ruhm’s deftly structured fable. Graf Geza von Közsnöm (Tobias Moretti) is bored with killing, bored with the lack of any meaningful challenge and bored with his wife (Jeanette Hain), who is equally frustrated with him. He dreams of a long lost love whom he fantasises might make him feel young again. So what is a respectable vampire to do when obsessed by such fantasies in 19th Century Vienna? It’s time for a visit to Doctor Sigmund Freud.

Having set up this potentially droll premise, Ruhm then veers away from it, showing us very little of the therapy and focusing instead on Geza’s supposed discovery of his lost love, reincarnated in the shape of joyously promiscuous local waitress Lucy (Cornelia Ivancan). Unfortunately for him, Lucy is already in a relationship with earnest young painter Viktor (Dominic Oley). Fortunately, that relationship is on the rocks: Viktor disapproves of Lucy’s free-spiritedness and the fact she wants to wear trousers, rebelling, to her supreme irritation, by continually painting pictures of her as a silk-clad blonde. His talent, however, appeals to Geza’s wife, whose great sorrow is that, due to the non-cooperation of mirrors, she hasn’t seen her own face for centuries. She’s potentially a valuable client. She is also an unabashed predator who fully intends to eat the young man after her portrait is complete. Firmly rooted in the mythos established by Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, and owing much to it in terms of style, this dry farce is predictably uneven but has moments of real charm.

Ivancan’s Lucy is a formidably modern version of the frequently reimagined heroine and as such shatters traditional ideas about the vampire romance, thrilled by the idea of gaining supernatural powers but not the least bit interested in setting aside her own identity for the spirit of someone long dead. It’s on this finely judged performance that the film depends. It’s a notoriously difficult kind of comedy to pull off, and Ivancan not only succeeds in hitting the right stylistic notes, she also makes us care.

The rest of the film isn’t quite as successful. Hain makes a splendid dominatrix and Oley has an easy charm that helps to overcome his character’s prudishness, but Moretti doesn’t always convince in the difficult role of Geza, and the role of Freud, played by Karl Fischer, is regrettably underwritten. The pacing is uneven and some parts of the film feel padded, consequently losing their bite. This is redeemed by the prettiness of the visuals, however. Ruhm can’t quite pull off the elegance of Herzog’s vision but he comes close enough to make this a beguiling piece of work.

Ultimately, this is the sort of film that will meet with mixed reactions depending on the sense of humour of individual viewers. Not everybody will find themselves able to relate to it, but for some – especially those already steeped in cinematic vampire lore – it will prove a delight.