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| Elina Löwensohn in Nadja |
Cast: Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan, Peter Fonda, Galaxy Craze, Suzy Amis, Jared Harris, Karl Geary, David Lynch. Screenplay: Michael Almereyda. Cinematography: Jim Denault. Production design: Kurt Ossenfort. Film editing: David Leonard. Music: Simon Fisher-Turner.
The title character of Nadja, Michael Almereyda's languid, somewhat campy take on the Dracula story, is Dracula's daughter, prowling Manhattan at night accompanied by Renfield (Karl Geary). When she learns that her father has been killed, Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) claims the body by putting a spell on a morgue attendant (the film's producer, David Lynch) and has it cremated, then stops at a bar where she meets a woman named Lucy (Galaxy Craze), who just happens to be married to Jim (Martin Donovan), who is the nephew of the man who has killed Dracula, Van Helsing (Peter Fonda). Jim is occupied with bailing out Van Helsing, who has been arrested for the murder, so Nadja accompanies Lucy back to her apartment, where they have sex. Then Nadja goes to Brooklyn to take the ashes to her twin brother, Edgar (Jared Harris), who is under the care of a nurse, Cassandra (Suzy Amis). Eventually, this collection of the living and the undead will collide, of course, with more or less predictable results. It's all played with straight faces -- a skill that Löwensohn and Donovan mastered in films directed by Hal Hartley -- and a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humor: At one point, for example, Edgar receives a telepathic message from Nadja that he calls a "psychic fax." The film blends crisp black-and-white images with grainy, blurry ones shot on a toy camcorder, though to no great effect.
