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

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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 ...
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Steel Life review – a journey through the poisoned majesty of Peru

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This vivid documentary follows a train from the Andes to Port of Callao on the Pacific coast, capturing rich life and toxic industrial legacies along the way

Carrying more than 1,000 tonnes of metal, a freight train heads down the Peruvian Central Railway, a route that stretches from the Andean city of Cerro de Pasco, one of the highest in the world, to the Port of Callao on the Pacific coast. Structured around this journey, Manuel Bauer’s documentary debut weaves a vivid tapestry of experiences that captures the complex sociopolitical fabric of contemporary Peru.

Dominating these intimate anecdotes, which are spread across regions, is the influence of the mining industry. Manuel, a middle-aged native of Cerro de Pasco, speaks of how his friends and relatives have either died of lead poisoning or chosen to migrate to other towns. Health concerns trouble not only the older population of Peru, but also the children who grow up amid contamination. Here disease and early death are more than facts of life: they emerge as a disturbing kind of intergenerational inheritance.

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