Neil Jordan knows something about vampires, having directing INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, and Sam Riley know something acting, having all been very good at it thus far (PRINCE OF PERSIA really wasn’t Arterton’s fault). And lo, with their powers combined they make BYZANTIUM, a supernatural tale that sounds (and looks) like it will at last restore some of the dignity lost to vampires via returning them to a place of seduction, sexuality, and tragedy.
Hearkening back to the book DRACULA itself, good vampire stories have always acknowledged and/or explored the immense cost of being a vampire, and if the plot described below is any indication BYZANTIUM will do exactly that. While still being tempered by lust and desire and sensuality, that is – those qualities are honestly just as important, and represent a different kind of cost. Here’s to hoping that Neil Jordan and Co. don’t let us down whenever BYZANTIUM eventually releases.
Plot recap: Eleanor and Clara, two mysterious and penniless young women, flee the scene of a violent crime and arrive in a run-down coastal resort.
They try to find money and refuge along the tawdry seafront and in the dilapidated hotels. Clara, ever-practical, sells her body. She soon meets shy and lonely Noel, who provides a roof over their heads in his seedy guesthouse, Byzantium. Clara, always looking towards the future, turns it into a ‘pop-up’ brothel.
Meanwhile Eleanor, the eternal schoolgirl, meets Frank, a kindred spirit who unwittingly prompts her to tell the truth about her life. She tells him that Clara is her mother; yet Clara is only a few years older. She says that she was born in 1804; yet she is just sixteen. She confesses that she must drink human blood to stay alive – and so must her mother. In the small, quiet town, people start to die. And the past that the girls have been running from for so long, finally catches up with them – with astonishing consequences.