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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Waterloo Sunset review – inside an oasis of affordable living

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This highly watchable documentary spends time with the residents of an almshouse in central London – cheerfully dispelling misconceptions about ageing

Tourists drifting out of London’s Tate Modern sometimes find themselves peering through the gates of nearby Hopton’s Almshouses, a collection of 20 pretty cottages built around a grass courtyard which looks like a village green. If anyone asks what the place is, one cheeky resident tells them in a low whisper that it’s an institution for the criminally insane. Actually, Hopton’s is a little oasis of affordable housing for low-income over-65s, built in the mid 1700s by a philanthropist fishmonger for “the poor and decaying men of the parish”. Like many other elite men-only spaces it was slow to adapt to change, only admitting women in 2012.

It’s like winning the lottery, getting a flat here, says one resident, a former taxi driver. He lost everything after a divorce in middle age; moving to Hopton’s changed his life. This very watchable documentary introduces a handful of other residents too. Jenny, 92, cheerfully talks about a recent fall on a bus which left her with a sore back. Did she go to hospital, director Harvey Marcus asks from behind the camera? Jenny looks appalled. “No! I could get up and walk. Why make a fuss?”

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