We Are The Night

The popularity of television series’ like True Blood and fantasy love stories like Twilight have allowed the spirit of the vampire to live on in popular culture.

The popularity of television series’
like True Blood and fantasy love stories like Twilight
have allowed the spirit of the vampire to live on in popular culture.
It is long since Bram Stoker
brought us his literary vision of the ultimate bloodthirsty demon, but as a
nation even now we still enjoy a good old bloodthirsty, neck biting tale. However, as the genre moves on, television
and film are escaping the confines of Dracula’s masculine cloak and exploring
the notion of the all-powerful female vampire.

We Are the Night is Germany’s venture in to the deep,
dark underworld of the contemporary female vampire. The film opens with a captivating, gory scene on board a
first class flight from Paris to Berlin.
Vampire trio Louise (Nina Hoss),
Charlotte (Jennifer Ulrich) and Nora
(Anna Fischer) have massacred all
the passengers and crew and depart the plane mid-flight. Leader Louise desperately seeks another
female with ‘the gift’ to extend her coven and gain an eternal mate. Meanwhile, Lena (Karoline Herfurth), an outcast tomboy living a life of poverty and
petty theft, catches the eye of young police detective Tom (Max Riemelt) when she picks the pockets
of a pimp. As Tom stays hot on her
heels, lonely and curious Lena unwittingly discovers the underground techno nightclub
domain of the vampire trio and becomes the target of the relentless Louise.

The
film has an attractive cast, with the dress and demeanour of the trio a merging
of both modern day and the generation they came from. Ulrich is a stunning, classic beauty and she elegantly
portrays 1920s silent film actress Charlotte, reading epic novels and listening
to classical music on an i-Pod. Louise
is the ultimate seductress: slow
moving and powerful with a wicked, charming smile, while Nora is the cutesy,
loveable, but immature (and incredibly irritating) one of the three. In a form not dissimilar to Kirsten Dunst in Interview With the Vampire, Lena sheds her boyish image and
develops timeless beauty as she transforms in to one of the undead. Riemelt’s Tom is a leather jacket-wearing,
blue-eyed, dimpled, blonde intent on rescuing Lena from her damaged life.

There
is not an overload of blood, gore and vampire movie clichés in We Are The Night
but just enough to keep the vampire fans satisfied. The main strengths come from the sharp cinematography, more
original storyline and engaging characters. The film provides us with an alternative to The Lost Boys formula, coming from a
powerful, female perspective. Gone
are the delinquent boys with their motorbikes and daredevil stunts. Now we have strong, sexy women in fast
cars, gorging on alcohol, drugs and late night shoplifting sprees for chic,
designer clothing. The vamps
ravage men in their nightly escapades but there are also hints of lesbianism
and a yearning to be loved. A
sharp note of feminism also permeates the film, with male vampires extinct – the
remainder killed off by the females:
‘No king. No boss. No husband. What woman can make that claim?’ Also threaded through the action are some interesting and
moving sub plots, one of which surrounds the story of Charlotte and another a sweet
and affecting love story which is not at all tainted by Twilight’s dumbing down
of young romance. Despite this
however, it would have been nice to see the film delving deeper still in to the
background stories of each vamp in the trio.

If
Pan’s Labyrinth or Let The Right One In are anything to go
by then this film is also at risk of being overlooked due to the subtitles, but
don’t let them deter you. With
essences of The Craft, The Hunger and True Blood, We Are the
Night is a fast-paced, slick and sexy watch.