The Countess

source: The Countess

One admires Delpy for writing and directing and, given the fascinating historical material, it'd appear hard not to come out with something good. Alas, THE COUNTESS misses badly on every and all levels. Its a poor love story, historical account, morality tale, feminist doctrine, suspense work or anything else it might be. There are cringe-worthy embarrassing moments; e.g., when the Countess gets her first "taste" of blood, when her staff simply roll their eyes and abet the murder of young women, when the Countess' young love succumbs to bedding his monstrous arrest-warrant subject and -truly hard to sit through- when our heroine "redeems" herself of sadistic murders via a soul-searching and indicting soliloquy. I get the idea that the favorable COMMENTS here in IMDb are mostly females too attached to their gender identity to see the forest for the trees. It's no accident that this film found no concern willing to release it. PS: Hurt is a redeeming virtue and Delpy still manages to show she's a top rate actress. Bruhl was awful casting and both looks and acts like a "gee whiz" high school kid better seen on TV.

As much as I wanted to like this film, I was left feeling unsatisfied after watching it. It felt as if the writers were unsure of what direction they were taking, most of the time. It wasn't a horror, a psychological thriller, or an accurate historical flick... though it did have elements of all the aforementioned. I was also disappointed to find that (since it's such a dark movie) there was virtually no suspense or build-up. I caught myself growing bored at many points throughout the film, which is really surprising given the subject material. It doesn't help that the acting seems forced most of the time (as if the actors are reading their lines off of cue cards), or that Delpy and Bruhl have about 0 chemistry... I did, however, love the costumes and the sets, as well as Anamaria Marinca's unique character. All in all, I was just hoping for a bit more. A bit more horror, a bit more suspense, a bit more passion. This movie left little to no impression on me... and I was sorely disappointed.

This movie rocks because it manages to be both a lavish, complex period movie and a psychological horror movie at the same time. Julie Delpy does a fantastic job in the role of a complex woman from a brutal period in European history, and her performance somehow gracefully manages to be both sympathetic and monstrous. Bathory is one of history's most prolific and sadistic mass murderers, but historians are ultimately unsure of who she really was, and to what extent she was responsible for the atrocities for which she is credited. Most agree that the whole "beauty treatment bloodbath" thing is a myth made up by later generations to spice up the story, so I was surprised that a telling supposedly rooted in fact ended up going that route, but I loved the idea of a Bathory who is a real person and not just a 2-dimensional fiend. Great sets, costumes, and performances from a well-written script make The Countess an engaging and informative portrait of a woman whose vanity and blood lust have become the stuff of legend.

The legend of the Red Countess, like that of Dracula and so many others has yielded several theatrical and film adaptations. The challenge is to make something new with this ancient legend, and to try to be equal to the great directors who brilliantly tackled the subject. Julie Delpy likes challenges of this kind. Not only did she write the script, direct, act, and compose the music, but her adaptation can compete with what I thought was the best previous film adaptation of the legend by Walerian Borowczyk (from the collection called Immoral Tales, and with Paloma Picasso). Delpy acknowledges her debt to this director through a number of details that those familiar with Borowczyk's works can recognize. Another great reference is Coppola's Dracula, of which Delpy borrowed the lyrical and tragic tones. Of course,this can only situate Delpy's aesthetic choices, and much of her originality rests in her interpretation of the legend. Here, she blends her own speculations about the Countess's character and motivation with historical facts, to make a new and provocative statement about the legend. The best way to see this film is to compare it with the other adaptations not as much to see who spent the money the most intelligently, but what each director has to say through the same legend.

I hope I don't upset a lot of good folks when I say that American film makers just can't make top quality period drama. Westerns being the obvious exception. The American accent is a relatively recent thing and it simply doesn't work in any kind of believable form when coming from the mouth of a sixteenth century character. It's the accent of cops, hoodlums, coke adverts and hamburgers. That said, there was a great deal effort put into this film to get things looking and feeling right for the period. However, all those efforts don't come anywhere near paying off. The Countess is a slowing moving, uninteresting mishmash of 'serious' actooors plying their trade within a risible script. It tries so hard to be a 'great' work and fails at every turn. Julie Delpy seems unaware of who or what she is. The countess is at times a lesbian lover, matriarch, wife, businesswoman, wreck, girl, woman and everything else you can think of... all in slow motion. William Hurt isn't given a chance with his script. His monstrous character is barely explored and his sidekick, sadomasochistic accomplice is just a daft cliché. Bathory (the other, recent version of this story) was simply terrible. This film is not a lot better in my opinion although it certainly improves a little when the pace picks up towards the end. But despite all of the money chucked at it, I found it barely watchable. A real shame. As for Erzebet Bathory, I think it would take someone of the stature of Roman Polanski to tell her story in a compelling, cinematic way. Keep away from this film. It's a stinker.

Julie Delpy gives her own vision (through an innocent young man's eyes who would have been one of her numerous -male and female-lovers)of a nefarious figure of history .her direction is icily impersonal but effective .Her hieratic cold look gives the jitters for her acting is restrained.Unlike Walerian Borowczyk's segment of "Les Heroines Du Mal"(1979) in which Paloma Picasso played an "erotic " countess with nudity galore,"the countess" has few bed scenes and few gore clichés -and with THAT subject,it is much to Delpy's credit.Her directing is not feminine at all (as Agnès Varda's or Jane Campion's are) and her character has the mind of a man :political power,women and men treated -with one exception- as sexual objects .She wouldn't sacrifice a virgin lad cause ,she says , God created man in his own image .She remained pious even in living in the most awful sin! The atmosphere which is depicted does not square with reality,if you read one of her biographies:she lived in a lugubrious castle ,in a cold area,and she suffered from chronic migraines which almost never gave her any respite.

Well, actually, in the Little Carpathians, apparently, which are not part of Transylvania, or so Wikipedia tells me. I really enjoyed this film (at home on pay-per-view)though I think it is intended for a pretty narrow audience. As others have noted, the dialogue is amazingly stilted (very literary, rather like a French novel of the 17th or 18th century) and delivered in near-monotone. I kept feeling that the whole movie had been dubbed into English. On the other hand, I found the acting very fine, and I admired the insistence on presenting these characters as not at all like you, me, or the folks in the latest TV drama. The Countess in particular is a strange, unique portrait--her piety, her desire for amorous adventure, her pride, her intelligence. And that's before you get to the blood-of-virgins part. The film proposes that what we are seeing before our eyes is not the truth about the Countess. We are watching a fantasy of a noblewoman enacting a tale "told by the victors"--by the men who were enriched by her downfall and relieved, too, to be rid of the very possibility of an intelligent woman. The tale is told, too, by the peasants and others whose sons are fighting in her army. Yet the man who questions the gory story is her lover, and he too may be deceived. There is no simple answer to the question, what really happened?--no resolution. In short, it's an intellectual (and visual) treat, but it won't affect your blood sugar.

I normally quite enjoy period pieces. However, I'm unsure exactly where to begin with this film. The costumes and set decorations were lovely. That was the *only* thing I liked about this film. Julie Delpy's voice was often dubbed over and created quite a bit of confusion. The accents did not accurately reflect the region, and the manner of speaking did not accurately reflect the time period. I found all of these aspects to be very distracting. The acting between herself and her "lover" was cold, wooden and completely unbelievable. The acting itself is strictly 3rd rate, at best. The pace of the movie is very mechanical. I'm not sure if it's the acting itself or the storyline that makes it close to impossible to connect with or empathize with any character involved. Her lover's feeble declarations in and out of bed had me reaching for the fast-forward remote each and every time. Monotonous, tedious, poorly scripted and badly acted. I say skip the Countess and save your money.

Writer/director/producer/musical scorer/actress Julie Delpy brings to the screen a character from history that few know. The film is based on the true history of the woman known as The Blood Countess, but after viewing this film it is obvious that the actual figure on whom the story is based was a brilliant political mind, a woman of noble breeding who could read and write in four languages, who once widowed was able to successfully defend her lands from the warring Turks and exact control over the reigning Hungarian King Matthias. But back to the history of the character as written by Delpy. 'Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian) (1560 - 1614) was a countess from the renowned Báthory family of Hungarian nobility. She is considered the most prolific female serial killer in history and possibly the most prolific of any gender. She and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls, with one witness attributing to them over 650 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80. Erzsébet herself was neither tried nor convicted. In 1610, however, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later. Later writings about the case have led to legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins in order to retain her youth.' The film opens with voice over by István Thurzó (Daniel Brühl) who relates the story of his only love. We are privy to the strange behaviors of the young Erzsébet who had a sadistic streak and was at birth promised to be the bride of Ferenc Nádasdy (Charly Hübner). She became a beautiful woman and Erzsébet (Julie Delpy) married General Nádasdy, gave birth to children, and together they were the power couple of Hungary. When Nádasdy dies, Erzsébet meets and falls passionately in love with István Thurzó (Daniel Brühl), a many 19 years her junior, but Istvan's father György Thurzó (William Hurt) prevents Istvan from remaining with Erzsébet. Left alone Erzsébet remains a powerful warrior, dallies with the sadomasochistic Dominic Vizakna (Sebastian Blomberg), but fears her young lover will forget her if she ages. She discovers that the blood from virgins will restore her youth and thus begins the serial killings to support her vanity. As questions of debts owed to her by the King there is an investigation of her personal history led by György Thurzó and without proper trial she is condemned to house arrest in darkened sealed rooms in her own Csejte Castle where her fate is sealed. The film is beautifully designed, costumed, photographed and scored, and Delpy manages to pace her story credibly and well. For this viewer there is an absence of gritty passion that would make the history more indelible: Delpy and the remainder of the cast fail to create fiery on-screen chemistry that would have brought a sense of stronger impetus to the heinous acts that occur. But as a piece of rarely known history it is a fascinating film about a strong woman of the past and the impact she had on her country ... and on legends! Grady Harp