"A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"

To be honest, I left the theater feeling a bit confused. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” was billed as an Iranian Vampire Western. But the style was more like black and white French new wave – from the smoking cigarettes, the “Rebel Without a Cause” outfit of the protagonist (Arash Marandi), his 57 Ford T-Bird, even the striped shirt the aloof vampire girl (Sheia Vand) wears under her abaya. 

Shot in the California desert, it seemed to be more about an Iranian in the West, than a Western. Aside from the avenging outsider, there were none of the fixers of a Western - no shootouts, no barroom brawls.

All I could recognize as Iranian was the Farsi language and how the young vampire wears an abaya. In Iran, women must cover their bodies to keep men from sinning. Perhaps the film is commenting on how when, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” she is seen as a temptation. But in this dark fairy-tale, the girl is actually empowered by the abaya. She sports the abaya like a superhero cape, giving her the power to walk the streets unseen as she plays avenging angel, preying on predatory men.

Perhaps it is a commentary on modern Iran. The setting is Bad City – which is certainly how Iran sees America. The streets are full of “American vices”: prostitutes and pimps, a free-spirited transgender person, drugs, and violence. Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll. I suppose this could be a cautionary tale on the dangers of becoming too Americanized. 

Director Ana Lily Amirpour 

In an interview by Roger Corman, writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour spoke about how the movie was really about her and the loneliness she feels. It is about her Iran as seen by an Iranian expat in America. The setting is a lonely postindustrial living ghost town with a crumbling infrastructure, surrounded by stark desert with ominous oil pumps drawing black liquid from the earth. While great wealth is being made just outside its boundaries, the town doesn't benefit from it. Billboards taunt the citizens with products that few can afford. It seems that all the good has been sucked out of the town. The inhabitants are like ghosts of their former selves – before they became desperate drug addicts and street walkers preyed on by the bottom-feeder pimp/drug dealer. The loneliness is palatable as the characters are isolated by the secrets they keep. The vampire seems to feed on that loneliness.

The story takes a  bittersweet turn when this sad avenging angel vampire searches for some hint of hope for mankind as she follows a street urchin and warns him not to be bad like the other men in the town (or he might be her next feast). She makes a fleeting connection (over a shared love of rock music) with a young man who is trying to hold onto his last vestige of humanity as everything around him tries to suck it out of him. The film shares a similar theme with the, "The Babadook." This unlikely couple finds comfort in the shared connection of accepting their dark side.

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com