“BYZANTIUM” Trailer: Neil Jordan returns to Vampires

by: Samuel Zimmerman on: 2013-02-01 20:39:57

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE director tells another tale of creatures of the night.

West End Films has already unveiled our first look at the Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan-starring vampire film that sees the two as mother and daughter Clara and Eleanor, two mysterious and penniless young women, who flee the scene of a violent crime and arrive in a run-down coastal resort. They try to find money and refuge along the tawdry seafront and in the dilapidated hotels.

Clara, ever-practical, sells her body. She soon meets shy and lonely Noel, who provides a roof over their heads in his seedy guesthouse, Byzantium. Clara, always looking towards the future, turns it into a ‘pop-up’ brothel.

Meanwhile Eleanor, the eternal schoolgirl, meets Frank, a kindred spirit who unwittingly prompts her to tell the truth about her life. She tells him that Clara is her mother; yet Clara is only a few years older. She says that she was born in 1804; yet she is just sixteen. She confesses that she must drink human blood to stay alive – and so must her mother. In the small, quiet town, people start to die.

Spanning centuries, the film looks in line with Jordan’s most exciting works: lush, sensual and sweeping. FANGORIA found the film “bewtiching” out of last August’s Toronto International Film Festival (our review) and we can hope its mother-daughter relationship will add a fresh face to the well-worn monsters.

IFC will be distributing in the U.S. BYZANTIUM is currently undated.