{"id":1893,"date":"2015-08-24T19:07:36","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T23:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=1893"},"modified":"2024-05-17T17:12:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T21:12:14","slug":"a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=1893","title":{"rendered":"A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night-2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night-2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Ana Lily Amirpour<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Sheila Vand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #271<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"70301280\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed August 24, 2015<\/p>\n

Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a highly creative, unique, independent horror film from 2014.<\/p>\n

One of the many reasons I am a fan of independent cinema is to discover and promote little-seen gems.<\/p>\n

The dialogue is in Persian and the cinematography is in black and white, which is unique in modern film. I notice similarities between this film and Let the Right One In, 2008, (both the English and the Swedish versions) in the frigid mood and love story enveloped within.<\/p>\n

This film is the debut of director Ana Lily Amirpour and what a marvel she could become. Despite obvious influences by other directors, A Girl Walks Home At Night has a brilliant freshness and seems original and unpredictable.<\/p>\n

The title accurately depicts the main story. A teenage girl (Sheila Vand) walks around the dark streets of a city aptly named Bad City in the Iranian underworld.<\/p>\n

The film is shot in southern California and could double for Detroit.<\/p>\n

The girl, who has no name, has strange encounters with a myriad of peculiar individuals, including what appears to be a transgender prostitute, a vicious drug dealer, a nice yet mysterious young man named Arash, Arash’s father, who is hooked on drugs, and a mysterious cat.<\/p>\n

She then embarks on a tender flirtation with Arash.<\/p>\n

The overall plot, which I found secondary to the look of the film, centers around The Girl’s encounters with these individuals and their encounters and relationships with each other.<\/p>\n

The Girl is a lonely vampire and feels isolated from society, but it is unclear what she is looking for. She is both destructive and sweet depending on the circumstance.<\/p>\n

She takes her aggression out on the bad.<\/p>\n

The most striking and impressive aspect is its dark moody atmosphere. Brooding and cold-looking, the city reeks of death and loneliness. The Girl speaks very little so her expressions are what the viewer will notice.<\/p>\n

Her eyes delve into her soul.<\/p>\n

She is the most interesting of the characters, but the others, specifically Arash and the transgender prostitute have potential and we are curious to explore more about them.<\/p>\n

Arash and his father have more depth than any of the supporting characters- Arash painfully lets his drug-riddled father stay with him and attempts to assist him with his issues.<\/p>\n

One assumes that since the father’s wife (Arash’s mother) has died suddenly, he has taken a downward spiral, but this is only suggested to the audience.<\/p>\n

We do know for sure where she is- in one scene we see the father angrily look at a photo of a middle-aged woman and is destroyed by her absence. He believes that the woman has taken on the body of the mysterious cat.<\/p>\n

Arash caring for his father is a fascinating role reversal.<\/p>\n

Wouldn’t we expect the young man to have a drug problem and the father the caregiver? This is interesting in itself.<\/p>\n

The influences are plentiful, but most notable from a director standpoint is David Lynch. The black and white filming along with the viewer’s point of view in one scene involving a car driving down a dark highway resembles the Lynch film Lost Highway (1997).<\/p>\n

The moody background music and the slow but methodical pacing give A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night a Lynch feel. One curious element is The Girl’s interest in 1980′ pop music- her bedroom wall riddled with Madonna and similar pop stars from the 1980’s posters.<\/p>\n

The Girl even admits to listening to a sappy Lionel Richie tune.<\/p>\n

It is unknown if it even could BE the 1980’s as time seems unimportant. The film strangely combines edgy, alternative filmmaking with commercial pop references.<\/p>\n

I half expected The Girl to break into a rendition of “Pour Some Sugar On Me”.<\/p>\n

My thought is that perhaps Amir intends to portray the Girl’s desire to fit into mainstream society knowing that a vampire never can. This theory is proven when The Girl is melancholy when Arash buys her a hamburger, knowing she cannot enjoy it as he does.<\/p>\n

Creative, with a dreary atmosphere, and intelligently thought out, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) is a strange, murky experience in film experimentation.<\/p>\n

Amirpour is a fresh, new director worth watching for.<\/p>\n

Independent Spirit Award Nominations:\u00a0<\/strong>Best First Feature, Best Cinematography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night-2014 Director Ana Lily Amirpour Starring Sheila Vand Scott’s Review #271 Reviewed August 24, 2015 Grade: A- A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a highly creative, unique, independent horror film from 2014. One of the many reasons I am a fan of independent cinema is to discover … Continue reading A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night-2014<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4542,1962,13,41,217,35,263,2651,4543],"tags":[78,4544,1968,248,73,218,67,264,2654,4545],"class_list":["post-1893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2014-films","category-ana-lily-amirpour","category-elijah-wood","category-horror-films","category-indiefilms","category-indie-horror","category-foreignfilms","category-foreign-horror","category-persian","category-sheila-vand","tag-2014-movie-reviews","tag-ana-lily-amirpour","tag-elijah-wood","tag-horror-films","tag-independent-films","tag-indie-horror","tag-foreign-language-films","tag-foreign-horror","tag-persian","tag-sheila-vand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1893"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20222,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1893\/revisions\/20222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}