The Blood Countess review – Isabelle Huppert reigns supreme in a surreal vampire fantasia

Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role. Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the ...

Barbie director Greta Gerwig says she wasn’t allowed Barbie dolls as a child

Film’s co-writer and director says on Radio 4 that her mother initially stopped her from having a Barbie doll

Barbie is on course to be the biggest movie of 2023 and could dominate the awards season, but its director, Greta Gerwig, has admitted her childhood memories of the doll were not as perfectly pink and positive as might be imagined.

Her mother initially stopped Gerwig from having a Barbie doll, concerned that it reinforced female stereotypes.

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