A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Drama/Horror	Featurette-Behind The Scenes-(18:56) Interviews-Cast & Crew-Interview with Lily & Sheila (29:48) Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Madman Propaganda x 4
Rating
Year Of Production	2014
Running Time	96:27
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ana Lily Amirpour
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Sheila Vand Arash Marandi Marshall Manesh Mozhan Marno Dominic Rains
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Farsi Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     In an Iranian ghost town called Bad Town, where only the oil pumping rigs and the power station seems to be active, young handsome Arash (Arash Marandi) lives with his drug and prostitute addicted father Hossein (Marshall Manesh). Both the drugs and the prostitute, Atti (Mozhan Marno), are supplied by Saeed (Dominic Rains) and when Hossein cannot pay what he owes Saeed takes Arash’s prize possession, his car. At night, a girl in a black chador walks the streets alone; known only as The Girl (Sheila Vand) she is a 187 year old vampire who kills men and drinks their blood. But when she meets Arash, stoned and coming home alone from a party dressed as Dracula, something other than bloodlust stirs in her heart and a tentative relationship starts to form. As the sad and lonely lives of the inhabitants of Bad Town intertwine, is there any hope of happiness?

     A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, from writer / director Ana Lily Amirpour, a second generation Iranian / American, is ambitious and not a little audacious for a first feature. It is made in black and white, with Farsi dialogue, and is a jumble of influences including old vampire movies, film noir, graphic novels and spaghetti westerns. It may be style over substance, but what style!!

     Much of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is filmed using long slow takes without dialogue or music, some takes held for so long that even Sergio Leone may have said cut! The camera lingers on faces and eyes, which works well as Sheila Vand, who has very little dialogue anyway, is sad and very expressive. Indeed, much of the sound stage of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is very muted which makes the sudden advent of loud atonal sound, or the spaghetti western music straight out of Ennio Morricone, very disorienting and effective. Some of the images of Arash or The Girl at night reflected in the light and darkness are very film noirish, but other images, such as The Girl riding a skateboard down the dark street, her chador flowing out behind her are things I doubt anyone would have seen before, and so stand out in the mind.

     A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a very ambitious film which at its heart is a sad story about isolation, loneliness and the possibility of love. While it may want to draw on too many diverse influences, that does not stop A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night from being one of the most intriguing, atmospheric and beautiful films I have seen for a while, one that is also not let down by the open ending. This film thinks it is so cool – and you know, it generally is!! Oh, and the cat, which has an essential part in the plot, is superbly well behaved!!

Video

     A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     This is a black and white film which often shows a deliberate softness in backgrounds. Close-up detail is fine, and while some sequences at night, such as the scenes in front of the power station or street lights, are clear enough, in others the black chador of The Girl frequently blends into the background. The blacks are deep, and use is made frequently of “film noir” style light and shadows. I guess we see what we are required to see.

     Artefacts and marks were absent.

    English subtitles are in a smallish white font but are easy to read and I did not notice any spelling or grammatical errors.

     The layer change at 63:50 resulted in a slight pause just before a scene change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a Farsi Dolby Digital 5.1 track at 448 Kbps.

     There is not a lot of dialogue but what there was seemed clear and centred. This is a film with a lot of silences, and otherwise the sound stage is quite muted with only occasional effects, such as the oil derricks’ pumps or the thunder, and music in the rears. At various times for effect the audio track added loud atonal sound. The subwoofer added rumble to this atonal sound, heartbeats in one sequence, thunder and the music.

     The score added to the fun being a mixture of Iranian pop, techno, rock and spaghetti western music performed by a range of groups including Kiosk, Radio Tehran and Federale.

    Lip synchronisation was fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Behind the Scenes Documentary (18:56)

    This is not actually a behind the scenes documentary but writer / director Ana Lily Amirpour talking with producer Elijah Wood, and sometimes cast member Sheila Vand, about the influences on the film, the graphic novel and her cat. Includes quite a bit of film footage as well.

Interview with Lily & Sheila (29:48)

     Ana Lily Amirpour and Sheila Vand sit together and are interviewed by Eddy Moretti. They talk about the inspirations for the film, script development, how they met, their relationship, the characters, the music, loneliness and love. There are some long sections of film footage too.

Theatrical Trailer (1:44)

Madman Propaganda

     Trailers for Two Days, One Night (1:31), Oh Boy (2:18), When Animals Dream (2:00) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2:11).

     The Region A US Blu-ray of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a special edition which includes as extras a graphic novel, a different behind the scenes featurette (20:22), deleted scenes (22:08), a Q&A with the cult director and producer Roger Corman (44:18), a stills gallery plus the two extras we have on our DVD. Amazon.com lists a DVD but gives no details of extras and I cannot find any review of the DVD. If these extras are available on the DVD it would be the best release but with no information, buyer’s choice.

     A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night has not yet been released in the UK.

     A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is absolutely one of the most imaginative and coolest films you are likely to see this year. Anyone interested in anything very different should check it out.

     The DVD has good video and audio. The extras are interesting but fall short of those on the US Blu-ray.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall