Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)

Canada 75m, silent (B&W)
Director: Guy Maddin; Cast: Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, David Moroni, CindyMarie Small, Johnny Wright, Brent Neale

Guy Maddin’s surreal silent production of Dracula is the most unusual interpretation of Bram Stoker’s novel yet put to film. In incorporating the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretative performance of the novel and set to the music of Mahler – Dracula becomes a moving, sensual and dreamlike experience. As with Maddin’s other work, this unique film utilizes many of the silent era’s techniques, including the expressionistic use of shadow, mood tinting, and various lens effects.  Likewise, the camera work, while more fluid than most silent productions, is often  punctuated with rapid edits – making this a most visually interesting and extraordinarily paced silent film (Klaus Ming November 2010).