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 ...

Al Pacino on Dog Day Afternoon at 50: ‘It plays more today than it even did then’

The 85-year-old actor talks the legacy of his stirring 1975 drama, his love of YouTube, fake death rumours and why he won’t discuss politics

The lions of 1970s cinemas are now lions in winter. “I’m so sad about Redford,” says Al Pacino, a day after the death of Robert Redford, his fellow octogenarian actor. “I liked him so much. He was such a sweetheart.”

Perhaps it is because he is currently filming King Lear that Pacino is preoccupied with our collective crawl toward death. He recently rewatched his younger self in Dog Day Afternoon, a Hollywood classic that celebrates its 50th anniversary on Sunday, and was struck by how many of the cast are now gone.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/woD9eTq
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle Club review – Maggie Smith can’t save this rocky road trip to Lourdes

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

‘I lost a friend of almost 40 years’: Nancy Meyers pays tribute to Diane Keaton