A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

This film reminds us that there is a counter-culture in Iran. They too have sex, drugs, rock’n’roll (both American and Iranian) and even breasts.

The film had an American production team, American producers, was shot in California but has an Iranian director, cast and dialogue. So it is an Iranian film however outsourced. The setting is a bleak, isolated city dominated by a monster power plant and oil well pumps. It evokes the climax of Welles’s Touch of Evil.

Director Ana Lily Amirpour presents the underbelly of Iranian society. There’s the wealthy spoiled playgirl who takes ecstasy from handy gardener Arash but won’t kiss him. The decadent  macho pimp turns Arash’s old dad into an addict, then claims Arash’s sportscar in payment. He exploits his whore Atti. Finally, the titular vampire seems out to avenge injustices done women when she fangs the pimp and old man but spares the little boy and Atti, finally driving off with beau Arash.
    Where the traditional vampire is driven by sustaining thirst this one also robs and plunders, showing a certain readiness for life in our world. Arash’s piercing of her ears for his gift of stolen earrings is both a deflowering and a reversal of her bloodletting. Her discriminate killing keeps her from being labelled a terrorist. She’s closer to a supernatural force enforcing the prophet’s forgotten respect for woman. She wears the hood.

Of course the film has a political undercurrent. It’s impossible to ignore its putative setting: a bleak Iran with a huge gap between the oligarchs and the despairing population. The only national energy is its echo of Western rock, not the oil that’s characterized as robotic pumps. This film’s world has no hope or beauty — except for the hard-working and devoted son Arash and the vampire he loves.
     Of course their escape is futile. Wherever they go they‘ll be doomed to their past. We’re not told but of course we know she’ll outlive him. By centuries.

In the only explicit political reference, a Reagan mask bobs up at the drug party. As president Reagan arranged to sell Iran arms — despite the embargo for having held American diplomats hostage (for that story don’t see Argo) — he’s an emblem of the daylight lifelessness for which the Iranian regime still stands. He’s America’s dark side in contrast to the bright side of the counterculture. 

     This is a refreshing B film with strong visual style and a healthy dose of sickly atmosphere. Perhaps if Secretary of State Kerry fails to negotiate a gussied up surrender to Iran, his deputy Dennis Rodman might swing something with this set.