
Can love truly triumph over darkness? Does evil emerge out of our own dark depths or is it external? With such powerful, poignant questions, Nosferatu is a melancholic examination of the never-ending battle between love and inner darkness. Metaphors are tricky, especially in a genre like horror.
A horror film could lose its way by being indulgent in its themes or become superficial with its reliance on genre conventions. However, Nosferatu remains true to its gothic horror roots, serving up the inexorable allure of the macabre and its meditations on the psychology of love and internal darkness, in equal measures.
Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is a young woman coveted by an ancient demonic entity, Count Orlok/Nosferatu. Throughout the film, we see her go through exorbitant levels of psychological and physical torment, her loved ones facing death and worse, and even the end of the entire world, as she refuses the call of Orlok to join her.
It is interesting to ponder upon how even an agent of darkness cites love as a reason to unleash terror. As she recounts her earliest encounter with Nosferatu, Ellen, overcome with guilt, remembers how she essentially summoned Nosferatu as a young girl, in her pursuit of love and affection. More than once, Ellen questions her own nature.
She is not sure if the darkness that compelled her to reach out for Nosferatu, in desperation for love, is her own nature, or if it is a manipulation of evil beyond her. Her internal struggle reflects how any attempt to move from a toxic past is constantly fettered by extreme guilt or self-reproach. Another scene that reflects a different facet of a toxic relationship is how Orlok manipulates Ellen and even goes on to blame her for his twisted intentions.
Nosferatu is a perfect example of how horror, as a genre, has more to offer than fear and dread to its audience. Even with plenty of attempts, and with tastefully crafted visuals and brilliantly orchestrated scenes, we hardly flinch. However, we completely grasp the slow decay of sanity, relentless torment, despair, and mortal fear that the characters go through. Nicholas Hoult as Thomas Hutter and Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, perfectly capture how bone-chillingly terrifying it must be to go through the things their characters go through.
The sequence where Thomas Hutter first encounters Count Orlok is a sublime confluence of several filmmaking skills. Structured to play out like a nightmare, the scenes glide into each other like how lapses in time feel like in a dream. The way the film captures the true darkness of a moonlit, 19th-century night, and how the raw flame of fireplace and candles is captured as a warm glow in the faces of characters not afflicted by the madness of Nosferatu, renders it a painting-like quality.
Even with heavy-handed themes and metaphorical richness, Nosferatu never looks down on its genre, an issue most prevalent in modern horror. It serves up every ounce of conviction it has towards the genre, and its supernatural elements, without being dismissive of it or feeling compelled to include 21st-century rationalism or sensibilities. In that, it echoes the earnestness of its original, FW Murnau’s 1922 silent era classic of the same name.
Drenched in romanticism for the macabre, Nosferatu works best as a poignant story about the battle between love and darkness. Ironically, darkness wages war with its own twisted form of love, lust, and affection, which the film makes apparent is but a form of evil manipulation. The film leaves us with a haunting final frame, a gory work of art. It feels like a poignant painting of a battlefield, after a night of battle between light and darkness. It reads like an extension of the film’s own caption, “Succumb to darkness.” The final few moments tell us how darkness succumbs to love instead.
Director: Robert Eggers
Cast: Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe
Rating : 3.5/5