A hidden, mysterious voice
calling out for blood and bones.A dark
figure with long claws reaching out on screen.An explosion
of drum beats. The rapid-fire lyricism of the guitar.
Chills.
My last show of this year’s Fringe Fest took me to Writers &
Books Friday night for the multidisciplinary showing of NosferatuBemshi! Part film, part spoken word, and
part live music, all rooted in the dark and mysterious world of the vampire
mythos, it was creepy and out there, yet a perfect way to cap off Fringe this
year. There were no glittering vampires to be found here.
This was my first time seeing F.W. Murnau’s
1922 silent black-and-white vampire film “Nosferatu,”
and with David Esposito and G. E. Schwartz performing live (reading poetry
and playing guitar/band effects), it was a lot to swallow. The film itself can
be hard to follow on its own, and if the performance was
a beer, it would be closer to a Guinness (full, rich, and filling) than those
lighter excuses for water-down brews. In the same way, NosferatuBemshi! might not be for
everybody: the watcher has to deconstruct the film, the music, and the
poetry all at once, which can be intimidating and overwhelming. But that’s half
the point.
There were moments here and there when everything didn’t click.
The music balance sometimes over powered the spoken word, and there were a few
scenes where the added live songs didn’t seem to mesh all
that well with what was happening on screen. But, Esposito and Schwartz
weren’t afraid to let a few parts of the film stand on their own, in its
original silence, which was even more stark and apparent when it stood as gaps
between the swirling maelstrom of music and words that had preceded it. The Bemshi aspects did walk the line quite well for the most
part, enhancing the film and framing it instead of distracting from it.
But, the experience.
Ah, the experience. When everything was working together, it was suspenseful.
Eerie. Dark, macabre, and powerful. What resulted was
an artistic onslaught of the senses that was quite powerfully effective at
getting under my skin. The film itself might be dated, but the added layers
built upon that foundation to give birth to something even more haunting and
modern.
Consider me
unnerved.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2013.
