Now that I’ve seen A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, I can sound off on whether its tagline—“the first Iranian vampire Western”—rings true. No, it doesn’t. There aren’t a lot of Western notes springing up in Ana Lily Amirpour’s movie, about a guy named Arash (Arash Marandi) dealing with his junkie father (Marshall Manesh) while befriending a mostly silent character known only as The Girl (Sheila Vand).
But there’s a sort of ghost town feel, and maybe that’s where the Western gambit is supposed to land. Whatever the semantics, Bad City (worth noting: Southern California plays Tehran on screen) is dying, so it only makes sense that the girl in question is there to help it along. Amirpour captures loneliness better than any director in years, and the helplessness of being stuck somewhere with no foreseeable future.
Vand is perfect as The Girl (who, yes, is a vampire), letting her face stay blank for large chunks of screen time. Marandi is nearly her equal as a man changed by her. Plus, there’s a welcome and unsubtle message of rejecting religious oppression (The Girl wears a chador as she dispenses with her male victims). The compositions are beautiful, the black-and-white is gorgeous and the music top-notch. The one complaint is that it drags here and there, but when you’re undead, isn’t everything a drag?
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
With Vand, Marandi and Manesh
The Screen
NR
100 min.
Santa Fe Reporter