Byzantium follows Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan's two-hundred-year-old *kind-of-vampires (*they have no fangs and instead use odd extendable talons; they're fine in daylight; and they have reflections) as they take shelter in a decrepit hotel after almost being caught by a mysterious man, who Arterton leaves burnt and dismembered.
There's an interesting film somewhere under the heavily overcast, annoyingly self-involved, and highly contradictory, script. Arterton and Ronan, as mother and child, kill a plentiful amount of people during the film, but never dispose of a body (bar one); and yet the big issue for Arterton's vampire (or 'succruent', as they're referred to here), the code that she and Ronan must live by, is that they must never tell anyone their true story. If a person finds out, they have to die. Now that's all well and good, but if you're already exsanguinating most everyone that you come across, you'll probably be found pretty sharp-ish. Sam Riley, the next mysterious man tasked with hunting down the pair, has absolutely no trouble following the trail of bodies, which are better and more frequently set down than breadcrumbs. Realistically he should have found Arterton and Ronan some time around the twenty-minute mark.
Then there's Ronan's whole dalliance with college. They're on the run but somehow Ronan inrolls and attends classes, UNDER HER OWN NAME. She also kindly provides an address. This wouldn't usually bother me, but every other sentence Arterton utters is about them staying out of the public eye, and keeping to the code: "Gotta keep to the code. Can't break the code. What do you think I'm going to say next? A good guess would be something code-based." I'm paraphrasing a tad, but that's the the gist.
The one thing in Byzantium's favour (besides the ever-awesome Saoirse Ronan) are the regular flashbacks in which Neil Jordan (the director) goes all out: lurching the film from mopey melodrama to bloody operatic bombast - or something close to it. His tweaking of the vampire mythology: having a vampire create itself, makes for a strong image (although it's problematic in a 'How-does-Back-To-The-Future-make-any-sense' sort of way, but it's not a big sticking point); the rivers of blood that then run, as a consequence of being 'turned', is almost as striking. But strong imagery does not a good film make.
The only stand out sequence of the film has Ronan starkly explaining just what it would take for a person to believe she's the vampire she claims to be. Its a strong scene, touching upon ageing and deathlessness in a way that the rest of the film clearly wants to, but constantly falls short. Its a scene that indicates that there was a good idea in there at one point, but it got lost in a stuttering grating romance, that's only believable for ten-second stretches.
Overall: 4/10
I would rate it 3/10.
ReplyDeleteYou only talk about Ronan, how about Arterton? Ronan barely did anything besides suck old people's blood and lament on her immortality.
ReplyDeleteRonan was the heart of the film - she was also the only one to get a good scene. Arterton was interesting, cast somewhat against type, but she felt more like the inciting incident to the story, Ronan's story, than part of the thing herself.
ReplyDeleteMostly I was trying to keep the review short and pithy, and Arterton just didn't register as strongly for me.
Did you like the film on the whole or were you just slightly less indifferent to Arterton's character?
The film was so-so. Though she was the "heart" of the film, I thought Ronan was lifeless; her sadness and striking blue eyes didn't reach me like most. I found Arterton much more interesting despite her character being rather one note. There were a couple of scenes for Arterton: waterfall scene, when she and her daughter get into a verbal altercation in the hotel's kitchen and when she's begging for Eleanor's life to be spared that stood out to me.
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