A View to the film Byzantium

By Victoria Castro Chavarría, July 2015

Although Byzantium, a luridly brilliant film adaptation written by the playwright Moira Buffini and directed by the internationally acclaimed Neil Jordan (known for his Interview With the Vampire), was not purportedly screened under the label of “gothic”, it avails itself of the use of literary devices, including symbolism and setting, and the vampire/undead motifs and archetypes to eulogize and revamp —no pun intended — the influence of the gothic genre in the film industry. In the main, Byzantium owes its quaint charm to Jordan’s profound understanding of the vampire lore, which has a tendency to fall on the category of misrepresentation, especially in recent times. The airs of ambivalence that permeate this gem of a film engender a scent of discomfort and trepidation on the viewer, who is forced to cope with the film’s conflicting time frame of action. The disquieting deviations, which are comprised of 19^th century flashbacks, reinforce the Victorian theme of history repeating itself. As with many a piece of writing from the gothic genre, the central characters in the film are bound to reproduce past occurrences, which automatically brings about the issue of powerlessness in the face of fate. In reality, the past and what I like to call “the misfortune of absolute impotence” appear to be the major topics of conversation in the film, even in the more modern milieus. The fact that Eleanor Webb (played by the incredibly talented Saoirse Ronan) has recorded the pitfalls of immortality for over two centuries evinces a peculiar pattern concerning her rather complex kindred: her blood relatives must concede defeat to the burden of memory. As Eleanor herself admits in due course, “I walk and the past walks with me.” Palpably, the tragedy of the inescapable being, which comes along with the impossibility of self-change, saturates Byzantium with melancholy. Cursed with immortality, the inharmonious duo of sucreants/vampires, Eleanor and Clara (Eleanor’s maternal figure, played by the compelling Gemma Arterton), must “fit” their fluctuating surroundings and endeavor to “look forward, never back,” as Clara says. The duo is obliged to embrace a tortuous existence and contend with the subject of nonexistence as well. The relatively slow-paced development of the film was probably intended to echo the tediousness of eternal life, in view of the film’s use of timing. In an effort to instil a sense of melancholic weariness and disorientation upon the spectator, Jordan embedded Beethoven’s Sonata in C Major, Opus. 2, No. 3- Adagio (sublimely played by Ronan) ad infinitum throughout the film. With respect to the use setting, the bloodcurdling yet barren island and the grim seaside township merge with the aesthetically flamboyant brothel and the picturesque amusement park, producing an almost mesmeric contrast. Beyond the tantalizing and every so often conflicting visual layers that embellish Byzantium, the film’s settings (place and time) act as antagonists. As exemplified throughout the entire film, the passage of time shows indifference towards the woe of the two escaping female sucreants. Several parenthetical explanations are necessary to delve further into the issue of setting as an opposing force. At the outset, Clara is discovered by Captain Ruthven (Johnny Lee Miller) and Lieutenant Darvell (Sam Riley) in a coastal village— a scenario which reappears later in the story as a cruel reminder of the past—and shortly indoctrinated into prostitution by Ruthven. It is during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) that Clara gets pregnant from rape and later gives birth to Eleanor, whom she cannot put to death for “love confounded her.” In order to save her child from the claws of sex work, Clara ascertains that her Eleanor can be raised in an orphanage, a place that undoubtedly contributes to ingrain sentiments of alienation and loneliness in Eleanor. Continuing with Clara’s story, she falls ill with tuberculosis and manages to steal a map intended for Ruthven which leads to a place of pilgrimage where the secret of immortal life resides. After killing the man who forced her into whoring, Clara heads to a barren island, held in reserve by a misogynic brotherhood, and attains eternal life. In view of the fact that Eleanor gets syphilis from rape (anew because of Ruthven), Clara decides to make her immortal, which in turn infuriates the members of brotherhood, who engage in a two-hundred year persecution against the only female sucreants . In light of this, setting functions as an antagonist, for it forces the characters to “exist outside time”, reproduce past events, dwell on secrecy, and break away from the male sucreants for eternity. In regards to Jordan’s rendition of the legendary vampire tale, it deviates from the classic portrayal to a certain degree, which allows for a novel take into vampirism. In truth, the beauty of Byzantium lies in its atmospheric nature, which elegantly combines the fundamentals of the gothic tradition with a number of innovative contributions from the British dramatist Moira Buffini. With respect to the archetypal forms of vampiric characterization, Jordan abstains from delving into the psyche of the demon lover, an archetypal figure recurrently associated to vampirism. On the contrary, Jordan explores a more interesting aspect to vampirism: monstrosity. The sucreants are, in essence, undead bloodsuckers who rely on others’ vital energy to satisfy their innate cravings. In the case of Byzantium, Buffini manages to introduce both the archetype of the “angelic” vampire and a multilayered mother figure that possesses many a trait from the archetypal femme fatale. On the one hand, Eleanor epitomizes the “angelic” vampire, for feeds only on the consenting elderly, almost on the verge of fatalness. Unlike the archetypal demon lover, who sadistically feeds on unsuspected victims, Eleanor puts others to death out of mercy. Clara, on the other hand, is capable of luring, emasculating, and murdering abusive males, while being a motherly figure, which raises the topic of female emancipation through sexuality. This particular inversion of roles infuses the film with endearing feminist overtones. Furthermore, the most important relationship in the film is that Eleanor and her mother, in spite of the vampire-human romance between Eleanor and Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), a leukemic boy with whom Eleanor bonds and, thus, shares her and her mother’s secret. Although Jordan restrains from employing the demon-lover archetype, he makes reference to the beloved cult film Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), which features the horrific archetype. With respect to the vampire myth itself, Jordan strays away from its erotic nature to offer a refreshing perspective on vampirism. The result is a gory gothic film wherein the image of consumption, the use of the color red, the symbolic nature of blood and the exploration of dark paganism prevail. As for the sucreants’ abilities, they do not posses any supernatural skill. Sucreants do not even possess fangs. Instead, they use a talon grown from their thumb to pierce the skin of their “victims.” Interestingly enough, sucreants cannot turn human beings into vampires, unless they rely on a secret shrine located in a sterile black land mass where humans die and reborn as immortals. It is on this place of pilgrimage where the “Nameless Saint”, an entity which takes the form of the person entering the cave, kills and turns those coveting immortality into vampires. After this eerie rite of passage, a flock of blackbirds emerges from the cave and blood streams down the island’s waterfall. To be brief, Jordan’s rendition of the vampire folklore elevates the nightmarish nuances of the gothic tradition and provides a fresh angle to vampirism.

The Bloody Culmination of the Pagan Ritual

Poster for the film Byzantium

Victoria Castro Chavarría, University of Costa Rica Poster for the film Byzantium