03/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: In his genre comedy trapped in its own circle, Adrien Beau attempts a Fearless Vampire Killers for poor people, betting on social inversion and an atmospheric artisanal production

“Move along, we don’t open for anyone… Whatever happens, don’t stop on your way. This forest is full of dangers.” The night is black, thunder rumbles and our aristocratic protagonist, all wigged up and powdered and whose convoy has been attacked by thieves and escorts decimated, isn’t doing too well, startled by every noise. And he’s not done worrying, on the contrary, in the atmospheric vampire film The Vourdalak [+see also:
trailer
interview: Adrien Beau
film profile], French filmmaker Adrien Beau’s debut feature, unveiled in competition at the International Critics Week of the 80th Venice Film Festival.

“There are things that it is better not to talk about,” especially in Transylvania. Pointed towards the house of the old Gorcha where he hopes to find a horse, the pompous Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfé (Kacey Mottet-Klein), diplomatic envoy of the King of France, will go through the looking glass, not only in a social sense (a very rude atmosphere in the peasant family hosting him), but most of all in terms of reality. Indeed, the ambient strangeness (a young man dressed as a woman – Vassili Schneider – his sister – Ariane Labed – openly hostile and considered crazy by her step-sister – Claire Duburcq – whose husband – Grégoire Colin – behaves like a despot in the absence of the patriarch pursuing the Turkish looters who have sacked the region) hides a much greater peril.

Without knowing it, d’Urfé is on the brink of a precipice and over a few days, from nightmares to oppressive, traumatising and bloody events, he will understand its full dimension. Because the old Gorcha (played by a strikingly realistic puppet) returns, with the head of a decapitated Turk as trophy, but most importantly transformed into a Vourdalak, a vampiric demon-skeleton-carrion who intends to take possession of all the souls in the household...

An adaptation of the first vampire short story written in Europe in the 19th century (The Family of the Vourdalak by Alexeï Konstantinovitch Tolstoï), the film is a kind of Fearless Vampire Killers for poor people, not only because the pyramid is upside-down (the vampires are the commoners), but also in terms of means with a production playing the artisanal card (from Super 16 whose blurriness the director of photography David Chizallet utilises) on the edge of a mixture of comedy, drama, suspense and gore (maybe even a symbolic pre-revolutionary historical rereading). A surplus of oddities for a time amusing and artistically interesting (one can sense an intention to go towards Parajanov), but whose result is globally uncertain due to overload, all without, however, letting the performers down.

The Vourdalak was produced by Les Films du Bal and co-produced by Master Movies. International sales are handled by WTFilms.

(Translated from French)