Movies We Love... A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night  (2014)

Young director Ana Lily Amirpour has fashioned an exotic tale with the look of a good graphic novel.  Filmed in gorgeous black and white and sure to take its place alongside "Let the Right One In" and "Only Lovers Left Alive" as modern classics of the vampire/horror genre, it manages to be both delightful and unsettling in equal measure.  In interviews Miss Amirpour has described her opus as an Iranian vampire western and it certainly lives up to the images that phrase conjures.  We found a vague echo in style with the early films of Jim Jarmusch.

Set in a fantastical place called Bad City, it could well be in Iran or, apart from the language the characters speak, somewhere in the desert American west.  Bad City is an oil town and seems to have a ripe drug culture.  We see mostly empty streets at night,  oil fields, refineries, warehouses and long freight trains.  There are bars and clubs, and modest bungalow style housing.  Through these nighttime streets walks "the girl" (Sheila Vand) with dark hair, mascaraed eyes, and wearing a chador...

A times she seems to glide but perhaps that is through the facility of a skateboard she commandeered from a young boy who fled in terror after being accosted by the phantom who asked him repeatedly, "Are you a good boy?"

In the girl's interaction with a young man, Amash (Amash Marandi),the tale takes on elements of a love story.  It becomes obvious the two are drawn to each other and that raises a number of questions:   Can she control her natural appetites?  Will he be frightened off when he knows her true nature?  Is this a relationship to be forever played out in shadows and half-dreams?

"A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night" is slow-paced but mesmerizing.  A stylish film (with a great soundtrack) that will haunt your dreams for many nights.  Highly recommended.