Maddin's first feature-length commissioned work that he didn't originate, and in this case didn't write either. Very different stylistically from the following film ("Cowards Bend the Knee"), this is the film of a ballet by Mark Godden for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, based on Bram Stoker's novel, with music taken from Gustav Mahler's first and second symphonies. Not typical Maddin material at first glance perhaps but the psychosexual nature of the Dracula story melds surprisingly well with Maddin's aesthetic, offering a more dreamlike and romantic vampire tale than usual, but also one in which the violence and hatred in the bigoted Victorian English men who confront the vampire is made almost as explicit as Dracula's own hunger.I'm not going to go into any great detail about the story, as it follows the fairly typical Dracula pattern; suffice it to say that young Lucy Westernra (Tara Birtwhistle) is seduced by Dracula, turns vampire and is ultimately killed; her husband-to-be has enlisted the aid of Van Helsing (David Moroni) who tracks Dracula to his lair by means of a new potential victim, Mina (CindyMarie Small) being used as bait. Finally, a confrontation between the lord of the night (Wei-Qiang Zhang) and Van Helsing's group ensues in the vampire's underground abode.This is very different-looking from the succeeding film, indeed rather different from any of the director's other films. Much of the film is shot in sharp and crisp 35MM as opposed to his more usual super-8 and 16mm (though I believe he uses some of those as well), many of the shots are longer and more fluid, and there is a dramatic use of color, digitally painted on in just a few bold strokes - red blood on the neck, Dracula's bold and frighteningly large red cloak, green money, yellow digital titles. The longer, more "balletic" and graceful shots contrast strongly with the rapid cutting in the action scenes and really help to highlight the sense of fear and unearthliness, and the casting of a Chinese-Canadian as the dreaded count emphasizes the xenophobia inherent in the novel and in the Victorian mindset generally.Gustav Mahler was a rough contemporary of Stoker's, and his first two symphonies premiered in the early 1890s roughly when Stoker was writing Dracula. I've been a huge fan of Mahler for years and at first I wondered how appropriate these works would be, but they fit this work almost like a glove - the glory of nature expressed in the first movement of the first symphony perfectly expresses the freedom that this bold, sexual and luminous being Dracula brings to the young repressed maidens of stuffy English society, and the "Resurrection" symphony (the second) is perfectly appropriate to many of the themes inherent in the vampire story. Also, their placement as late romantic works on the cusp of modernity seems to jibe well with Maddin and Godden's vision of Dracula as a 20th century, threatening, alien creature who may offer promise and a bold and liberated way in the world, but who the world is just not ready for.Beautifully and expressively dance, wonderfully shot and edited, if there's a problem here it's that Maddin's trademark strange humor seems to me at times a little out of place -- many of the titles are deliberately exaggerated, particularly at the beginning of the film. But this is a small qualm, and the beauties and emotional power of the story soon leave the few goofy elements behind. Gorgeous and visionary and proof that Maddin can do quite well with someone else's ideas to work from.

What does it mean exactly to say that Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary is stylish? Movies that, conversely, have a seeming "lack" of style like a minimalist movie ala Jarmusch em to get the short end of the discussion, while Maddin tries his hardest to make his images and movements of cinematic dexterity *pop* like cracking of knuckles on a movieola. It is a crazily inspired vision, stylized with urgency and a force to be reckoned with as far as taking silent film and pushing it into a new kind of expression: the ballet. Whether or not this will please people looking for a solid Dracula movie is another matter, since it isn't much, at all, a coherent telling of the Stoker story.And maybe rightfully so; people need to know right up front that Pages from a Virgin's Diary is one of the most unconventional vampire movies ever, and not because it changes around anything with the myth or even with many of Stoker's characters (although there is a Cowboy or other in the film that I don't remember in Stoker's story or Coppola's film). It's the expression of the story, told through the characters dancing and going through pantomime and detailed choreography that is both dazzling and frustrating. Unless you're really heavy into ballet and dance, after about half an hour some of this becomes just too much, and too much in the repetitive sense. Characters also keep popping up with title cards extended for them, but with the exception of Renfield (who's given a face by the actor that is remarkable), I couldn't entirely follow who was who, except that a Chinese guy drifted in and out and turned to be a vampire, yada-yada, etc.I shouldn't be this dismissive of the story, or the manner in which it was told. And, besides, I didn't go into the film thinking I would get an instant classic of the most noted (maybe too noted) source of vampire lore in history. What I did get was a fever dream, nd kaleidoscope, and experiment tossed into a blender of 1920s expressionism given more freedom than ever with 21st century technology, and hints of what was to come a few years later with Sin City's attempts at giving black and white film-making some "color" from time to time. The symbols come flying out almost as much as the dizzying camera-work, sometimes going as fast as the dancers, and for someone looking for just inspired direction on a familiar theme this is definitely where to look; in fact as far as the kind of Nosferatu story goes, this is as daring as Herzog's film.It just isn't entirely involving on an emotional level, and Maddin sets it all up and knocks it down like a very small-range technical exercise. Few exercises are this exhilarating or with such inventiveness with the process and history of film-making, but it's an exercise nonetheless. B+

I am completely revising my must see list after watching this. I know only one other of Maddin's projects, his "Saddest Music in the World" of the next year. I rated that in my category of films you must see. The rules of that list are that no more than two films per year, nor no more than two per filmmaker can be on it. This almost bumped "Talk to Her" off that list. It may yet. Let me advise you now that this is powerful and important stuff, the only successful marriage I know of literature, dance and film. In fact I know few that successfully integrate any two, much less masterpieces in each medium.The story itself is greatly enriched: all the most terrifying horror is beautiful, and this is: an arc of desire across your life for that hour and a half. Where the original was only about sex, this is written larger to race, money, power and all in an erotic context that transcends sex. You'll notice when seeing this that it is more true to the book than any other filmed version.Now just think for a moment about this: Dracula has been filmed by Murnau, Browning, Warhol, Herzog, Franco, Coppola and herds of lesser lights. No where has the scope been this broad and sharp.(The device of the diary has been changed from the detective's to the virgin's, a master concept that indicates the deep thought that went into this. Exposure to that diary makes the girlfriend sex-crazed, for instance, as if the art itself were the infected blood.)The dance. The choreographer has put together something that is remarkable, even seen merely as a ballet. It uses Mahler's music, by the way. That music is usually so overtly ripe it smells of selfish world conquest. It says something that here it seems merely supportive, that what you see on the screen is bigger.So the choreography affects powerfully but what matters is the cinematic rendition. This is far more evocative as filmed ballet than a live performance can ever be, because we are allowed to have our eyes dance as participants. When a character's eyes flutter and question, ours do too. When the dance suggests a motion, it is us that completes it or gives it a resting place. The integration of choreography and cinematography is the best I have ever had in my life: beyond the sheer energy of "Red Shoes" to intimacy.But it is the other cinematic qualities that make this unique. Dracula is a powerful story only because it evokes notions of the past that have power to awaken and live in our souls. Those notions are like the vampire and carried by him in the story. Once we touch them -- have sex with them, we are infected, transformed.How to convey that cinematically? Why by evoking old film techniques as the story did literary ones. (Today that evocation by hacks is inaptly called "gothic.") So we have a silent film. Actually a postmodern comment on a silent black and white film. Lots of reminders of the camera in cropping and Vaselined lenses. Occasional tinting (blood and lucre), overtly theatrical sound effects, wobbling when we have to move quickly (or die).The gauzy camera lens is made three dimensional with fog that extends the blur as the camera motion is also made three dimensional by the moving crowd. The whole thing has a phrasing and rhythm that is so well integrated among the dance, light, camera, story and music it is as if the things coevolved from the big bang.Whoever did the art design deserves a reward. The sets are organic and in the last half in the lair, overtly vaginal -- so overtly it shocks. It must have been drawn at the same time as the choreography.There's sex and beauty and seduction here. Be seduced my friends. Succumb. Art requires seduction and in the process some infection of urges. It is all about the dance -- Succumb, dance, die.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I saw this by chance on late night TV a while back and was mesmerised by it.Sadly, I feel that putting it out to the cinema is a waste of time as the mass market just does not exist.It should have gone straight to video/dvd so that it could be experienced again and again by those who would appreciate it. Like me.