The Birds Are in Berlin
Feb 12, 2009 | No Comments | ByBirds Eye View
BEV programmer Daniela Boban is at the Berlin Film Festival, catching the latest films by women directors including our favourite Julie Delpy with an early, (even more) gruesome version of botox, and a Chytilova comedy classic on the side…
Daniela Boban (BEV Programmer)
Yesterday, I caught Julie Delpy‘s latest offering: The Countess, Panorama Special screening, a period piece about a notorious 17th century Hungarian countess Erzsebet Bathory, played by Delpy herself, who allegedly used virgins’ blood as a pre-botox youth potion, in a desperate and increasingly gruesome bid to retain her youthful looks. A powerful, independent noblewoman falls for a lovely young man 20 years her junior after her husband’s death. This young man ends up breaking her heart and unleashing her murderous tendencies. She believes that the reason for the abandonment is her age, and becomes convinced that virgins’ blood can reverse signs of ageing, starting a series of gruesome murders of local maidens to feed her obsession with youth and beauty. Although the film portrays the story as if it was actually true, Delpy very strongly suggests that this was all possibly fabricated by the Countess’s enemies – what better way to get rid of a powerful woman than by spreading rumours about her as a blood-thirsty insane monster.
