Carmilla – critique

Director: Janusz Kondratiuk

Release date: 1980

Contains spoilers

This was a Polish TV presentation of LeFanu’s Carmilla that I have been aware of for quite some time, indeed I long had a murky version of it without subs. That same print has now been put on Matthew Pederson’s YouTube Channel with all its issues – including an ill-fitting soundtrack and poor-quality transfer – but with the added bonus of subtitles. They are, however, machine created and therefore not consistent – hence this is a critique to allow me to put the film on TMtV and not a full review. At some time, I hope proper subs, on a good quality print with original soundtrack might be available.

Carmilla and Laura

It is also said to be the most novella accurate of the versions. It isn’t, in my opinion. With the erasure of General Spielsdorf and his niece, a lack of cat transformation, some neat (but novel inaccurate) creative staking/trap building and an ending inference that I won’t spoil, it does take liberties but the broad strokes certainly are there. However, let me talk about the added soundtrack. A bombastic classical score feels inappropriate but more ill-fitting is music that has been lifted from Dracula (1992). It really feels off and is too overly familiar for genre fans.

the coach

Nevertheless, in a house we see movement as the household – Father (Leon Niemczyk), Madame Perrodon (Barbara Rachwalska) and Mademoiselle de Lafontaine (Anna Milewska) – go to Laura (Monika Stefanowicz), who, is in bed and states, “she was here”. The next day, at meal, we hear their chatter as we intercut with a carriage that hurtles through the countryside – one of the (male) passengers has a hand that seems to belong to a devil. There is a cry from outside the house – there has been a crash and a young lady, Carmilla (Izabela Trojanowska), is brought to their door.

Laura's father and Carmilla's "mother"

Carmilla’s mother (Zofia Rysiówna) impresses the urgency of her business leading Laura’s father to offer to let the daughter stay and for them to care for her. In the morning she is checked by the doctor (Tomasz Grochoczynski), who believes she is ok. He confides about the mayor’s daughter being attacked during the night and having her blood sucked. The father is more the rationalist it seems and the doctor edges towards the folk beliefs as a plague sweeps the area.

Carmilla attacks

I won’t go much further as the broad brush of the story does come from the novella and I am sure readers of the blog will be familiar with it. I will mention that when we see Carmilla attack Laura, later, she maintains human form and feeds from the neck. Whilst the lack of transformation to cat is disappointing, I was impressed with the disjointed, looped movements that added to the vampiric presence, and had almost a Lynchian quality to it.

flashback vampire

I will also say that when we hear about the historic vampirism in the area, getting a flashback to a stranger (Eugeniusz Priwieziencew) hunting the vampire (Jerzy Bonczak), the nobleman vampire hunter creates a spring-loaded trap that propels a stake through the vampire. I rather liked this too. One interesting assertion was that the soul is in the blood, if the translation here was accurate then it seems to step one stage beyond Stoker’s the blood is the life. So, no score to give as the print quality is so poor, the subs make it watchable but frustrating in places and the soundtrack would deflate the score and is clearly not what was originally put with the film.

The imdb page is here.