With the original title, Egomania - Insel ohne Hoffnung, this was a 1986 movie by Christoph Schlingensief and I think it is fair to say that it is more a tone poem than a narrative movie containing some engrossing and inciteful scenes within its feature length.
The Use of Tropes within the film can even be seen in the blurb that Amazon Prime Video gives the film: “A desolate island in the baltic (sic) sea is governed by the creepy vampire-like baron Aunt Devil. Where once peace and love shaped the lives of the islanders, now hopelessness and discord rule. When suddenly a true love threatens the tristesse of his island, the baron cracks up… A torrent of desire, intrigue and murder ensues.”
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| Sally and the baron |
As a film maker Schlingensief also played with the concept of vampires in his short film Die Schlacht der Idioten, which was released in the same year, and both the vampire in the short and the Baron in this were played by Udo Kier. The film follows Sally (Tilda Swinton, Only Lovers Left Alive & What We Do in the Shadows (series)), a young woman who falls in love with William (Uwe Fellensiek) and the fall out as their relationship is thwarted.
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| bat-like silhouette |
As I intimated the vampire figure is Kier’s Baron. There are a few moments within the film that lead us to understand that the director was pulling on vampire genre tropes – beyond the fact that Kier’s over the top performance dominates the film. Early on, in an industrial landscape, whilst crossing a bridge with the hirsute and Renfield-like Anatol (Sergej Gleitmann), the baron seems to hide his face from the sun and, in another scene, he raises his coat creating a bat like silhouette. At one point he seems to have hypnotised William so that he slavishly follows the baron and cannot see Sally.
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| dressed as Aunt Devil |
In another scene we see him eating earth – whilst this is not a trope from vampire movies, I was reminded of the Arnold Paole story and how he allegedly claimed to have been attacked by a vampire and so ate earth from the vampire’s grave to prevent himself from becoming a vampire – it apparently didn’t work. The reason the Baron is called Aunt Devil is because he uses that name when stalking Sally dressed in women’s clothes and a wig – perhaps akin to shapeshifting and certainly fitting with the vampire as representing queerness.
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| I need your blood |
The previous two aspects are, admittedly, more than a stretch but the most telling use of tropes is in the finale when, grabbing hold of Sally’s baby (we see swaddling only) he yells “I will suck you out. I need your blood.” He then, amidst a cacophony of flashing lights, smoke and soundtrack that obfuscates the scene, proceeds to suck at the baby – or so it would seem. William ends this by picking up a stake and killing the baron with it. This scene almost made me list the film for review, but it is also only a fleeting moment.
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| Udo Kier as the baron |
This is not an easy film, as I said at the head it is more a tone poem than anything and is filled with absurdist, surrealist moments and madcap performances. Narrative is eschewed for emotion and the scenes are designed to both communicate and provoke that. However, I remained engrossed through the film and, should you enjoy your films most definitely arthouse, then this may well be for you.
The imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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