Vampyr

This film by Carl Theodor Dreyer was first regarded as a mishap or at least as one of his least interesting films. As with 'Häxan' by Benjamin Christensen, I find this film watchable as one of the first Nordic examples of a Vampire story.

It's based on elements taken from 'In a Glass Darkly', a collection of short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. 'In a Glass Darkly' is of course alluding on the text in the 1st Corinthians 13 about the fact that we humans, in this life, are only able to see everything through 'A glass darkly' but once we will see evertything as it is, a quote later used by Ingmar Bergman for his film with the same name.

This story circles around a student of the occult by the name of Allan Gray (Nicolas de Gunzburg) entering a village under the curse of a vampire.
It starts when he gets a package by an old man with the text "To be opened upon my death".
After this many strange events follows, mysterious encounters and finally the revelation about the book containing dreadful stories about vampires.
When the young student wanders around in the village, meeting two sisters, one badly ill and obviously bitten by something or someone, he also meets or sees mysterious shadow figures everywhere.

At the whole the aesthetic is a mixture between German expressionism and surrealism à la Luis Buñuel. I find it very interesting and appealing.
The story as such is not so complicated of course but it becomes a rather thrilling 'tale' where the influence from Nosferatu is very clear of course.

It was Dreyer's first sound film and it was recorded in three languages but as he found this difficult he had minimized the dialogue in the film.

Badly received in Germany at first but after having rewrited or edited the film, it opened in France to a more positive revview or at least more mixed reviews.

Personally I find the surrealistic and expressionistic film language being something that talks to me in a positive way and therefore I see it primarily from the perspective of aesthetics.