A 4K restoration of Michael Almereyda’s 1994 vampire cult classic Nadja has been completed, with this new Director’s Cut (3 mins longer than the original release) playing around the country starting this past weekend. Along with details on where and when you can see the film for yourself, we have an exclusive clip just for Daily Dead readers, where Elina Lowenshon stalks her prey (Suzie Amis) through NYC’s lower east side.
In 1993, invited by David Lynch to come up with a low-budget genre movie, Michael Almereyda recombined characters from Bram Stoker and set them loose in contemporary New York. Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) is a disillusioned “young” vampire who imagines herself liberated by the death of her father, Count Dracula, but the unhinged Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) wants to destroy her as well, interrupting her reunion with twin brother Edgar (Jared Harris) and pursuing them into “a netherworld of shadows” (J. Hoberman). Shimmering 35mm cinematography alternates with hallucinatory Pixelvision (conjured by a Fisher-Price toy camera) to embody the feverish and fragmented nature of the vampire’s passionate feelings. As in Almereyda’s Twister (1989) and Another Girl Another Planet (1992), nearly all the characters are driven by misdirected desire: Nadja is obsessed with Edgar while inspiring romantic feelings in Lucy (Galaxy Craze) who is married to Van Helsing’s nephew Jim (Martin Donovan). Part seductive reverie, part spoof, Nadja is a delirious mashup of André Breton’s 1928 Surrealist novel of the same name and Universal Pictures’ Dracula’s Daughter (1936). Simon Fisher Turner’s ethereal score is offset by propulsive 1990s pop songs from My Bloody Valentine, the Verve, and Spacehog. As André Breton wrote, “Beauty must be convulsive or not at all.” Executive producer Lynch, who fully financed the film when other investors faded out, has a cameo as a hypnotized morgue attendant.
The original Director’s Cut of NADJA was digitally restored by Arbelos and Grasshopper Film from the only extant element, the 35mm print—the version of the film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1994, three minutes longer than the commercial release. Laboratory services by OCN Labs, Five Seventy Films, Ben Gilbert Films, David Ferron and Blackhawk Films. Special thanks to Michael Almereyda, Absurda, and MoMA.
For a list of theaters and dates visit: https://arbelosfilms.com/
