I already have my favorite 2025 movie. Period.

In Robert Eggers' movies, characters can mercilessly slit throats with their jaws while howling as if they were wolves invoking gods, fart without feeling the smallest bit of shame and even laugh about it, feel sexually attracted to a black goat that promises a more "delicious" life… and even have intercourse with the most grotesque vampire ever seen on a big screen solely to save the world. Yes, all this and more is presented by this director who doesn't embrace conformism's ideas as a way to approach his audience. Maybe that's why, when I watched Nosferatu—probably the New Hampshire director's most ambitious work—just a few days ago, the movie theater was filled with various young people laughing while the main character played by Lily-Rose Depp experienced a type of demonic/sexual possession in a particular scene. This clearly represents how we can't accept our morbid nature with the sole intention of wanting to belong to a social group. But that's another kind of debate…

This inherent "animal" side of the human being that Eggers represented in four of his magnificent titles means much more of what can be graphically absorbed. The fact is Eggers isn't scared of what the audience may think about his work. He simply doesn't care. We're all animals and everyone should know it by now, but the problem is that, in this modern world, we look more like programmed entities than anything else. Eggers prefers to date back to past times in which another side of the human being was felt. In this dark Victorian gothic story about obsession, dominance and seduction, the director decides to administer a refreshing dose of blood to the already renowned story of the infamous plagiarism in cinema history, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's eternal Nosferatu. A little over 100 years have passed since the premiere of this work as controversial as revolutionary and, in the way, hundreds of titles related to vampirism that mostly employed that sheer expressionism the German director had left as part of his legacy also premiered. The bar wasn't set that high about it: if we're going to be honest, vampires didn't get the respect they deserved in the last decades. All this changed, and now a new era begins.

But let's not be fooled, Nosferrratu's plot—as Willem Dafoe would pronounce it with that accent imposed by his commanding director—is just the story of a young lady with severe mental illnesses who, from an early age, endures macabre nightmares controlled by a demonic Count. Fantasy, witchcraft and sorcery fuse in a story that, from the beginning, presents an interesting visual and narrative dichotomy between surreal and real. Who's this Count Orlok? After the first half hour passes by, Bill Skarsgård appears on screen almost unrecognizable—thanks to an amazing makeup and performative work—as the buyer of an old decaying mansion located in the deteriorated Wisburg city, requesting the presence of a real estate agent to go through with the sale. So, where's the trick and magic of his greatness? The answer is in the means, and Eggers proves to be a master who loves them and goes beyond the screen like no one on this Earth.

As it turns out, like any man guided by female obsession, Orlok extensively implements a plan to get what he wants. The real estate agent is no other than Thomas Hutter, newlywed to the "delicate creature" Orlok has been lurking in dreams for years, so the journey begins with this encounter between Thomas and Orlok. But Nosferatu's characters, except for the decayed mustached antagonist, feel like puppets, but don't make it sound like an objective whim of this passionate spectator and author of this article. Eggers only decided to soften them with the sole purpose of making his villain feel like the Machiavellian puppeteer who controls the story's strings. This is his movie, even though it's sold as a deeper tale viewed from the young Ellen Hutter's depressed and sleepy eyes. Nosferatu is a gypsy town's worry and dread, the idea of a greater being as a metaphor for Colonialism, the battle between science's feasibility and superstition's unawareness, the symbol of sexual awakening. But above all things, the movie is one with the distinctive signature of an authentic time traveler.

Inspired by the immeasurable love for the handcrafted and tangible, the director literally immerses us in a twisted epic that depends on the crushing power of its images to impact as much as possible. If any aspiring director wishes to have a free masterclass in atmosphere building, they should gift themselves 132 minutes of visuals that push the limits of psychedelic and fantasy and a production design that feels like a hug for those dedicated to recreating an era to the highest extent. The movie feels authentically gothic from every corner: the director submerges us in the chiaroscuros reflected by a huge moon, puts us in the middle of a lonely road surrounded by pines that confine poor Thomas on his way to Count Orlok's castle, visually suffocates us, moves the camera slowly and rapidly to makes us part of the fever developed from the vampire's powers and dismisses any preconceived idea about how one of them may look like.

I have always believed that all stories are already told in cinema. At least that's how I see it. In general terms, almost everything at a macro level is represented in some way or another in cinema. So, what's left to be told? According to Egger's perspective, the answer transforms into another question: How will I tell what I want to share? In this triple back-and-forth between the audience, the film and its creator, we have a new vision of Nosferatu, an opportunity the director had been waiting almost his whole life to tell, and that I have been waiting all mine to see on a big screen.

Posted on JANUARY 28, 2024, 17:25 PM | UTC-GMT -3

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