I've been viewing a bunch of Dracula-related movies since reading Bram Stoker's novel, and I'm not disinclined towards highly-stylized and artistic adaptations. My favorite Dracula film, after all, is a postmodern silent-film ballet, "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" (2002). Not exactly mainstream fodder. But, "Nadja" is merely artsy; it throws the entire book of arthouse gimmicks onto the screen and pretends to art.It's filmed in black and white, with many scenes photographed with a toy camcorder, there's lots of cigarette smoking, there are scenes where indie music blares in some attempt to cover with emotionality images of nothing happening, there are other strange sound effects, voiceover narration, hardly-motivated canted and obscured angles, slow motion, jump cuts, negative images and deadpan delivery regarding daddy issues, narcissistic self wallowing and sophomoric philosophizing. At worst, this is very annoying and hard to watch, with the best parts--all of the violent vampire vestiges--obscured by the lousy pixelated images of the toy camcorder and the scenes that are in crisp black-and-white come off as some young Goth woman incessantly smoking, hanging out at bars and ranting about herself.At best, the ironic distance comes off as some kind of joke--like an intentionally so-bad-it's-good movie. I was laughing at delivery of such lines as, "She's dying... for a cigarette," or "Her emotions are like big storms," and I strongly suspected we had been taken for a ride when the Lucy character, in a zombie state, starts listing what she ate, including her discrimination of M&M'S colors, with the scene photographed in an absurdly arty fashion, still in black-and-white, and with over-dramatic blocking. Plus, this is the kind of humor one would expect from David Lynch, who produced and has a cameo in this one. In this light, Peter Fonda as Van Helsing seems to be the only one letting the joke slip. In the narrative, he's supposedly the crazy one, but his character is the only one that isn't almost-entirely a nuisance. It helps that, unlike the other characters, except for, sort of, Nadja in the end, his character has some motivation to action instead of just sitting around like everyone else saying stupid stuff, waiting for the next blurry, pixelated action to barely be seen.Past the artsy ostentation and inane dialogue, the story is a simple updated melding of bit parts of Stoker's book with a retelling of Universal's sequel "Dracula's Daughter" (1936). Nadja's hood is a reference to the one Gloria Holden wore in the predecessor. The parts from the novel mostly consist of character names and traits: Dracula dies, but Van Helsing is still nutty, Lucy falls under the vampire curse again and must be saved, and Renfield is always a slave. Basically, "Nadja" follows the plot of "Dracula's Daughter." She feeds off men and women (the sex being more explicit in this '94 film compared to the '36 one, expectantly), burns her dead father, renounces him and tries to forge a new path, some men try to stop her, she goes back home--completing the circle of where Stoker's Dracula began. Some of the particulars are different this time, including the inclusion of characters from Stoker's book and the addition of a twin brother. The brother is a rather unnecessary character except that it adds to a doubles theme that the movie develops late and becomes potentially incestuous in the end. And Lucy's conversion plays out as a bad episode of the menses. This isn't art. Art is beautiful and intelligent; artsy is pretentious.(Mirror Note: Van Helsing and son look at some photographs that Lucy, apparently, took of her night with Nadja. Contrary to some other vampire films, this vampire's image can be captured on camera, but, as the pictures are said to reveal, her image isn't reflected in a mirror. There's the horror-film jump-scare cliché when Lucy hallucinates Nadja's image in a mirror. And Van Helsing uses the reflections off his sunglasses several times to confirm vampirism.)

Seems that yet again this movie is a case of you'll either love it or hate it. It's a movie that takes a more unusual and artistic approach to its story, which makes this clearly not a movie for just everyone.As it often turns out, I don't mind movies taking a bit of a more artistic and unusual approach to its story. It often makes the movie a very compelling watch, even when you don't really fully understand what is going on.But as far as somewhat more artistic movies go, this movie is mostly perfectly understandable and easy to follow, since it might be somewhat pretentious with its style at times, it isn't with its story luckily. It makes this a pretty accessible movie, so also don't let the name David Lynch scare you off. His name got mostly put on the cover to cash in on it but his involvement with this movie was very minimal, though you could still really tell that director Michael Almereyda really admires David Lynch and his style.Basically you could see this movie as a modern take on the Dracula story, or rather said the story of the official Dracula sequel "Dracula's Daughter", from 1936, which isn't that well liked but was a movie I still absolutely loved. Perhaps that's also who I still really liked this movie as well. It strays away from the original Dracula story but I really don't mind that. There are so many different versions and interpretations of the original Dracula story out there, so I'm glad that this movie is featuring a story of its own, with still all of the familiar characters in it, such as the count himself (though very shortly), Van Helsing and Renfield.But even though the movie is mostly a compelling watch, it still isn't that interesting of a movie. I mean, it's one you could easily do without and one that even makes a bit of a pointless impression. It sounds strange, since I was still definitely enjoying it while watching. Perhaps it also was because I was starting to loose a bit interest at times, especially toward its end. You could say that the movie keeps building up to a climax or satisfying conclusion, that just never comes.It's not a movie that's not only heavy on its style but also really on its atmosphere. I though that the movie did a great job at creating a sort of old fashioned horror atmosphere, even though never anything scary or anything else horror related ever really happens in the movie itself. It was also real great to see Peter Fonda in this. He played a great Van Helsing and he even plays Dracula as well, while he was at it. He plays both parts quite differently, so some people might not even realize it's the same guy.A very stylish and atmospheric movie but I can understand if you don't like it.7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Dracula's daughter Nadja wanders New York City,melancholy and driven by her need for blood.She seduces and drinks from the depressed Lucy.Meanwhile Lucy's husband Jim is asked to help his friend Van Helsing who has been arrested for staking Dracula.But then the two of them realize that Nadja is drinking from Lucy.As they try to hunt her down,Nadja and her self-described 'slave' Renfield flee back to Rumania."Nadja" is a post-modern vampire flick which is actually a black-and-white reworking "Dracula's Daughter"(1936).The film was produced by David Lynch who also played a small cameo as a morgue attendant that gets hypnotized by Nadja.The film is splendidly photographed in a glorious black-and-white and offers tons of mesmerizingly dreamy atmosphere.Overall,"Nadja" is much better than overrated and too philosophical "The Addiction".The soundtrack by Portishead and The Verve is fabulous too!

Nadja starts in New York one night as a Vampire named Nadja (Elina Lowensohn) talks to a man (Nic Ratner) in a bar & explains that she & her slave Renfield (Karl Geary) have travelled to New York from her homeland of Transylvania because her Father Count Dracula (Peter Fonda) is dead & that it is hard to find good food in New York after 10 O'Clock. Shortly after in a car Nadja drinks his blood. Meanwhile Van Helsing (Peter Fonda again) is tracking Nadja down with the intention of killing her & he enlists the help of his friend Jim (Martin Donovan) to aide him. Jim's wife Lucy (Galaxy Craze, yeah right that has to be a false name) has met Nadja & taken her back to her apartment where Nadja & Lucy engage in a bit of lesbianism & blood drinking. Van Helsing & Jim become aware that Lucy is under the control of Nadja & in another bizarre coincidence Van Helsing's Sister Cassandra (Suzy Amis) is looking after Nadja's ill Brother Edgar (Jared Harris) who Nadja intends to visit, both Van Helsing's & Jim's desperation to kill Nadja becomes even greater as the people they care for the most are in danger because of Nadja's blood drinking activities...Written & directed by Michael Almereyda I hated just about every second of this supposed film. The script is slow & boring, nothing memorable really happens & is a bit of a chore to sit through. There are only a few character's in the film & I didn't care one bit for any of them, I've heard of minimalist but this is just ridiculous. As a whole Nadja doesn't make a lot of sense & just didn't grip, engage or entertain me in any way whatsoever. So the story & character's are crap can the film deliver in other areas, well no because Nadja is one of the worst looking films I've sat through. If black and white is your thing then fine & I have no problem watching black and white films but Nadja just looks so dark, bland & uninteresting. Then there's the shots which look like they were shot on a faulty camcorder, I'm sorry but they are incredibly annoying as the screen becomes an absolute mess of pixelation & blocks. To add insult to injury director Almereyda uses various irritating techniques to try & convince the viewer that their watching 'art' like soft focus, blurring, slow motion, shots where the background action runs at a different speed to the foreground, jerkiness, skipping frames & bizarre scene transitions. I hated how Nadja looks & was literary praying it would finish within the first 30 minutes but never let it be said I don't give a film a chance & I (just about) stuck it out to the end which was also crap. With a pretty reasonable budget of about $1,000,000 Nadja is a poor show, very few character's, no effects & a cheap feel throughout & I have to ask myself where all the money went exactly. There is no atmosphere, scares or tension & while I accept some people may like this black and white art-house nonsense I don't & that's all that matters to me, I simply cannot see how anyone could gain any sort of viewing pleasure from such a film as this & I certainly didn't. There is not one single aspect of Nadja that I can say I enjoyed apart from the central performance by Romanian actress Lowensohn who makes for a striking & seductive female Vampire. Fonda just looks stupid sporting long hair & reflective shades. Forget about any special effects or any proper blood or gore. If you like this sort of bizarre boring, black and white art-house stuff then Nadja is probably right up your street so I can recommend it to you but if your looking for a proper film with decent horror & an actual story then avoid this piece of crap like the plague, that's just my opinion & I'm sure there is an audience out there for a film like Nadja but it's not for me.