Latest news with #GermanExpressionist
Euronews
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Film of the Week: Luc Besson's ‘Dracula: A Love Tale' - Fangtastic?
Mere months after Robert Eggers returned vampires to their Gothic roots with Nosferatu, his stylish exhumation of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, it's now Luc Besson's turn to sharpen his fangs. "I'm not a fan of horror films," the French filmmaker recently told Le Parisien newspaper about his take, Dracula: A Love Tale, which straddles several centuries in the life of the immortal and cinematically ubiquitous blood-sucking count. "Nor of Dracula." Ah. That doesn't bode well, does it? Or maybe it's exactly what we didn't know we needed. Based on the original book by Bram Stoker, Besson focuses on Dracula's search for the reincarnation of his late wife. He kicks things off in Romania, 1480. Pillow fights, food fights, plenty of steamy sex... Prince Vladimir the Second (Caleb Landry Jones) and Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu) are two fusional lovebirds who are passionately into each other. Vlad gets called to war and after a rushed and poorly filmed fight sequence, he accidentally kebabs his beloved in a snowy field of wolf traps. He was trying to save her from an attacker, you see. Not trying to spice things up further. 'Tell God to send her back to me,' he pleads to the priest, who he promptly impales for failing to send the message in a timely manner to the Almighty. Renouncing God on the spot, Vlad is cursed, condemned to wander the centuries. 400 years later, in Paris, Christoph Waltz (a nameless man of the clergy referred to as 'Priest' but may as well be Professor Abraham Van Helsing) is called upon for a delicate case, featuring Maria (Matilda De Angelis). Her apparent sexual appetite is initially dismissed as hysteria by French doctors. However, he quickly deduces that she's a vampire, turned by her 'master' who is on the hunt for the reincarnation of his beloved. 'Sometimes pure souls can be reincarnated'. Not sure how 'pure' considering the religious morals of the time - not to mention the copious amount of fornication and food waste in the film's first act - but we make do. Before you know it, the damned and inconsolable prince, now a reclusive in his gloomy chateau populated with GCI gargoyles that may as well be Minimoy rejects, gets a lifeline. The escaped Maria may have found his princess... Her name is Mina (Bleu again), and she could be the reincarnation of his dead wife. Now looking like a boiled testicle, Vlad rejuvinates himself with some human Claret and sets out to win her over. But if he's condemned to eternal life, and therefore eternal suffering, that's not the sort of divine punishment one easily shakes off... A lovelorn incarnation of the famous vampire isn't as new as Besson seems to think it is. After all, Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula was billed as a love story, and since then, romantic devotion has always been a driving force in Bram Stoker adaptations. Indeed, this story has always been about a cursed man waiting hundreds of years to see again the only woman he has ever loved. It has always been the ultimate love story. Still, Besson colon-and-bills it 'A Love Tale' and... It's a royal mess. But a damn entertaining royal mess. Incapable of injecting tension or drawing out the horror from the story, Besson chooses to tell the tale of doomed love through the lens of a heightened fairytale. The director throws everything he has at it: tragedy, action, OTT melodrama, Danny Elfman's comically grandiose score, sexy magical elixirs, a Guillermo del Toro-esque carnival sequence, and a surprising amount of comedy. Yes, Dracula: A Love Tale is funny. Not Dracula: Dead And Loving It funny; rather, a film excelling at cartoonish and overripe comedy through committed performances by Landry Jones and his channelling of his inner Gary Oldman, the always terrific Waltz (whose delivery of the line 'She's alive. Clinically speaking' is fangtastic), and stealth MVP Matilda De Angelis. There is the niggling sense that the humour in this tonal hodgepodge is completely accidental, but it still lands. And the biggest joke of all is that this version is missing Gothic horror. Blasphemy for purists – and understandably so. For a film about the most notorious and celebrated Gothic figure in literature, a noticeable dearth of Gothic horror feels like heresy. However, in failing to create a serious meditation on love and salvation versus damnation, Besson may have inadvertently crafted a camp romp with Dracula: A Love Tale. Especially when considering the hilariously abrupt ending which has Waltz's Priest coming out of Vlad's castle and casually declaring: 'The spell is broken, everything is fine now.' CUT TO BLACK. TITLE CARD. THE END. Comedy gold. Intentional or no. So, while Dracula: A Love Tale doesn't inject too much fresh blood into the vampire myth, what it does is special. Egger's meticulous-to-a-mannered-fault approach may have been stunning, but Nosferatu ran the risk of alienating pre-existing fans yearning for less familiarity. When it comes to Besson, he risks alienating viewers for MANY other reasons. But get on his wavelength and again, accidentally or no, this may be the fated-to-be-hated high camp masterpiece of 2025. Alive and loving it. Dracula: A Love Tale is out in French cinemas now. It hits theatres in South America this month and is scheduled for release in other European territories like Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain in October.
Local Germany
28-07-2025
- Local Germany
Five surprising things about Dresden, a gem on the Elbe River
Many people may think of Dresden, a city of about half a million in the eastern state of Saxony, as little more than a right-wing hotspot. That reputation isn't wholly undeserved. In federal elections earlier this year, nearly one-third of votes in Dresden's electoral district went to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Dresden is also the site of one of Germany's most notorious neo-Nazi rallies, held every February in commemoration of the bombing of the city during World War II. But there's more to Dresden than right-wing politics. Here are five things that might surprise you about the city known affectionately as Florence on the Elbe. Dresden has a rich cultural and artistic heritage Dresden, which was once the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, bears plenty of reminders of its royal history. Visitors to the city's old town can tour palaces and see what remains of the kingdom's treasures, including the crown jewels of Saxony. The Green Vault, where the crown jewels are kept, made international headlines in 2019, when thieves stole jewels from the collection estimated to be worth over €100 million. Most of the jewels have since been recovered, but several remain missing. Dresden was also the birthplace of the influential German Expressionist art movement. The group of Expressionist artists known as Die Brücke , or The Bridge, was founded by a group of architecture students studying in Dresden in 1905. The movement, which was later denigrated by the Nazis as 'degenerate art,' was characterized by its experimental use of color and form. READ ALSO: Eight art galleries you have to visit in Germany this year Another famous painter with strong ties to Dresden is Caspar David Friedrich. His famous painting 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog' depicts a man gazing out over a mountain landscape in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, near Dresden. Caspar David Friedrich's 'Wanderer Over a Sea of Fog'. Photo: Wiki Commons Nearby Saxon Switzerland National Park offers picturesque hikes Outdoor enthusiasts can easily explore the sandstone peaks of Saxon Switzerland ( Sächsische Schweiz ) National Park from Dresden. Several trailheads are accessible with Dresden's S-Bahn. Advertisement One of the most famous trails is the hike to the Bastei Bridge, a stone bridge built in the mid-1800s across a dramatic rock formation. To reach the Bastei Bridge, hikers can take the S-Bahn from Dresden to Kurort Rathen. From there, they can cross the Elbe on a ferry and hike to the bridge. The hike takes between 45 minutes and an hour. Perhaps the most famous region named after Switzerland, Germany's Saxon Switzerland. By Thomas Wolf, - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wiki Commons Much of Dresden's old town was rebuilt, some parts as late as in the 2000s Many Americans know about the bombing of Dresden from reading 'Slaughterhouse Five' in high school English class. The novel, which is based on author Kurt Vonnegut's experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the bombing, has become an American classic. But far fewer probably know about the decades-long process of reconstructing the city's old town, which had long been famed for its beauty. Dresden was heavily bombed by British and American forces in February 1945. An estimated 25,000 people died during the bombings, and much of the city, including its historic center, was completely decimated. Landmarks including the Zwinger Palace, the city's opera house and the iconic Frauenkirche were heavily damaged or completely destroyed. But when Germany was divided into East and West following World War II, the process of rebuilding stalled. Though parts of the Zwinger and the opera house were restored under communist rule, much of what was once the city center lay virtually untouched for decades. It wasn't until after reunification in 1990 that the process of returning the old town to its former glory truly began. Dresden's citizens pushed to rebuild the old town, rather than to replace it with a modern city center. READ ALSO: How does Germany's 'phantom border' still divide the country? The Frauenkirche, which collapsed during the bombing and remained a pile of rubble for decades, was not reopened until 2005. Today, Dresden's painstakingly restored city center draws tourists from Germany and around the world. Advertisement Milk chocolate was invented in Dresden The earliest version of edible milk chocolate was produced in Dresden. But the way the Dresden chocolate manufacturer Jordan & Timaeus began producing the treat never really caught on. Jordan & Timaeus first advertised their version of milk chocolate, which was produced with steam power and used donkey milk, in 1839. A few years later, in the 1840s Swiss chocolatiers began producing a different – and more commercially successful – type of milk chocolate. Interestingly, the coffee filter was also invented in Dresden, by a woman named Melitta Bentz in 1908. Dresden invests in the future with semiconductor industry Though Dresden may be more well-known for its history, its burgeoning technology sector aims to bring the city into the future. Dresden was an electronics and manufacturing hub during the GDR (East German) era, and it has since become a hotspot for producing semiconductor chips. Most electronics we use every day require semiconductors, and the demand for chips has only grown as AI technology booms. Dresden has emerged as one of the most important hubs for semiconductor production in Europe. Advertisement The local government has strongly encouraged the semiconductor industry to come to Dresden. Chip manufacturers including Global Foundries, TSMC and Infineon have built plants in and around the city in recent years.
