A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014)

On the dark streets of an Iranian ghost town, a slender figure wrapped up in a chador stalks evil men. With an unthreatening face, The Girl (Sheila Vand) is invited into houses by the unsuspecting denizens of Bad City. For some, the mistake is fatal — a vampire can only enter one’s house if they’ve been invited. However, when The Girl meets Arash (Arash Marandi), she discovers that there’s more to men than the meat on their bones. She begins to entertain the idea that their relationship could be something more. After all, even the dead get lonely.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night / دختری در شب تنها به خانه می‌رود  is perhaps the first ever Iranian Western-vampire-horror film. Such a niche genre is just as unique an independent film as it sounds. In her directorial debut, Ana Lily Amirpour crafts a sublimely languorous look at the undead. Simultaneously humorous and thought-provoking, Amirpour’s first feature is an exceptionally stylish exploration of both the human and vampire condition, with the two being more similar than one may initially think.

From the outset, it’s apparent that Amirpour is concerned with pollution in all its forms. It’s particularly fitting for her subject. After all, purity has always been a central motif in vampire literature, with Gothic depictions of these bloodthirsty ghouls being centred on the wicked creature’s attempt to corrupt a chaste, young virgin. In this, it’s not only primal fears of physical harm or corporeal decay that predominate a vampire tale, but the terror of external, evil forces insidiously infecting and destroying the innocence of traditional Victorian values.

Amirpour’s narrative is just as concerned with the destruction of virtue, albeit in different forms. However, it’s always a preoccupation with pollution, both of the world and the subsequent moral degradation that follows. This is visible in a superb shot, where an orchestra of pumpjacks mine for oil. As these machines penetrate the Earth, plundering nature for its essences, it’s visually reminiscent of a vampire’s fangs being plunged into a victim’s exposed neck. And so, Amirpour deftly questions her audience: who, precisely, is the real vampire? Those who corrupt the world, or those who remove the corrupted from the world?

Amirpour takes a mythical creature from folklore and reimagines them. By simply changing the sex of our undead figure, Amirpour flips all the vampire symbolism on its head, effectively revamping (pun intended) an entire genre. It’s not a lecherous, beastly man corrupting young, chaste virgins, but a woman dispatching corrupt men. This shift in representation might have evoked imagery of the lamia and the succubus, but The Girl never once becomes monstrous. She is, in fact, rather charming.

That’s because, while she does kill, it never feels like it’s done maliciously: a cat hunts mice, and all she’s done is find the worst mice there are, the ones who won’t be missed from the nest. Here, vampires are ethical public servants, disposing of those that contribute nothing but suffering onto society. Or, at the very least, The Girl picks her targets selectively. While she’s technically the moral custodian of Bad City’s lawless streets, The Girl is aware that she’s not strictly moral, nor altruistic: “I’ve done bad things.”

With this fresh perspective and self-awareness, the symbolism tends in fresh, innovative directions. Namely, castration anxiety: as an alluring woman leads unsuspecting men back to their apartment, using her sharp teeth to chomp off fingers, the interpretation seems obvious. It also feels reminiscent of a line from The Shawshank Redemption (1994): “Anything you put in my mouth, you’re going to lose.” And while the social commentary may not be as on the nose as the likes of Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth (2008), where vagina dentata sever the genital members of rapists and douchebags alike, you don’t need to study Freud to understand the symbolism.

It feels as though Amirpour is making a statement on what men truly fear: it’s not just vampires that frighten men, but strong women, ones that aren’t easily bullied. Vand’s self-assured demeanour puzzles the men she comes into contact with, and it’s apparent from their reactions that it unsettles them. While she neglects to eat the prepubescent child on his way home, she does scare the living daylights out of him, ensuring he won’t use and abuse women his entire life: “Are you a good boy?”

Besides this young boy, it’s only Arash who’s spared by The Girl. Whilst tripping on ecstasy, the pair meet, and while The Girl lures him back to her apartment, she appears touched by his affectionate demeanour and childlike vulnerability. It’s the mere fact that he’s behaving so innocently that she decides to spare him, thus subverting the genre conventions once again. Vampires can be an edifying force, a virtuous presence to safeguard any moral community. Certainly it’s a more imaginative interpretation of this mythical creature than the recent (and terrible) Salem’s Lot (2024).

What makes A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night rather sweet is Amirpour’s preoccupation with the humanity in the inhuman. The Girl is technically a monster, but only from our perspective. When juxtaposed against the barbarity of normal, everyday people, her particular habit of draining us of our lifeblood doesn’t seem all that evil: it’s impersonal, but not malevolent. Amirpour’s depiction of a monster’s kindness remains subtle and understated, meaning fictional beasts feel wholly authentic.

Of course, it helps that Sheila Vand delivers a complete, layered showing, managing to steal the limelight (or streetlamp-light, in this case). Though her performance is predominantly wordless, she’s excellent in every scene she’s in. Her depiction oscillates between sultry looks, ravenous stares, and an understated tenderness: underneath that snarling, bloodthirsty outcast’s surface, there appears to be a longing for human company. The subtlety with which Vand and Amirpour handle their central character renders her deeply recognisable, despite the fact she’s an alien entity.

Indeed, perhaps part of the reason why vampires as an archetype continue to intrigue is that their primal urges strike us as so familiar: be it lust or hunger, their undead form is the only thing that truly separates us from them. That, and the object of their obsession, of course (or at least, I should hope). This idea, that we are more alike than different, is visually alluded to as Arash is tempted to puncture the yolk of his fried egg. The suspense we feel in waiting for him to crack that fragile membrane humorously draws attention to the theme of puncturing the skin: as the teeth of his fork hover, we anticipate all those tasty, gloopy essences spilling out, and we’re forced to reflect on how we’re all vaguely vampiric.

This is excavated especially well in Amirpour’s depiction of the opiate addiction that scourges Bad City. The story makes the argument that drugs turn people into vampires, and it’s a position that’s difficult to refute: Hossein (Marshall Manesh), going through withdrawal, looks even more febrile than The Girl does at the peak of her bloodlust. While filmmakers such as David Cronenberg have always made great use of the body as a conduit for meaning and allegory, Amirpour manages to create something original here: the border that separates the human body from the outside world— namely, the skin — is the only mechanism to protect oneself from the world’s evils, be it a vampire’s canines or a needle filled with heroin.

With all of this intelligent symbolism woven into the film’s fabric, it must be said that not an awful lot actually happens in this movie. This doesn’t particularly bother me —even if it was quite slow at times, the entire story is bound thematically, so it never veers too far off track. Furthermore, I adore this kind of relaxed pace: the story and characters have space to breathe, and even if it’s not going anywhere, it will take its time to get there. Much like Jim Jarmusch, Amirpour makes superb use of dead time, which feels rather fitting considering everything a vampire experiences is technically dead time.

The narrative structure is loose, deciding to spend more time allocated to entertaining sequences than establishing a traditional plot. This includes Arash being pushed on a skateboard by The Girl while he’s high on ecstasy, as well as The Girl stalking Hossein through the streets, mirroring his every movement. Whether as an homage to the Marx Brothers, The Pink Panther (1963), or just as a slow-building gag, it’s delightful to watch.

Speaking of which, this movie is so exquisitely filmed that you’ll often forget that very little is happening. The black-and-white photography is utterly spellbinding, and the composition of each shot is undeniably cool. Light is used superbly well, with Taft’s municipality effectively serving as the gaffer onset: the blindingly white hue of glaring streetlamps provides much of the stark lighting in the film’s many urban sequences.

Still, as beautiful as the film is to look at, it’s the central romance between Arash and The Girl that serves as its most endearing aspect. While the nature of their relationship is never truly explored, I’d argue that it doesn’t necessarily need to be: everything that is left up to our imagination is inessential information. We don’t need to know exactly how they will function, or where they’re going next; giving the audience room to wonder enhances the film’s impact beyond measure.

And as Arash and the girl sit in his car, looking each other in the eye with a smile creeping on both their faces, it’s clear that their adventures together have only just begun. With their cat sitting placidly behind them, they drive off into the night, and we can only guess what they get up to — but it certainly looks like they’re in for some fun.

USA | 2014 | 101 MINUTES | 2.35:1 | BLACK & WHITE | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Ana Lily Amirpour.
starring: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Mozhan Marnò, Dominic Rains, Milad Eghbali, Rome Shadanloo & Marshall Manesh.