An Underrated Masterpiece of Horror ...

Rating: 9/10 (30 January 2012)

"Interview with the Vampire", adapted from Anne Rice's novel, approaches horror like "The Godfather" for the gangster genre by plunging us in the most intimate depths of a scary underworld, to understand the complexity of three-dimensional characters beyond an apparent evilness. Neil Jordan's film, one of the best of the prolific 1994 year, is a harrowing journey into a perpetual darkness, whether it lies in the profound majesty of a night sky or in the heart of a creature that traded the admiration of a beautiful sunshine for the poisoned gift of immortality.
As the title indicates, the narrative consists on an interview between a journalist, Daniel (Christian Slater) and an affable and elegant vampire, Louis (Brad Pitt) who tells the story of his life which, like for every vampire, starts in human form. Louis grew up in New Orleans in the eighteenth century where he became a rich plantation owner and slave master at 25, which equals being 40 today. The premature death of his wife at childbirth made him lose the will for life, an easy prey for a vampire named Lestat (Tom Cruise). Through Daniel's naive questions, the film intelligently introduces our POV allowing Louis to sweep off all the clichés about Transylvania and crosses or to discuss them. We rapidly understand that "Interview' is a mature and innovative film.
The process of vampire-conception is one of the film's many novelties. When Lestat bites Louis' neck, he gives him the 'choice he didn't have', a repeated line that echoes in my mind, the 'offer one couldn't refuse' from "The Godfather", a sort of cynical invitation to die or to become a vampire. Louis was already dead by human standards, so his soul could find relief only through non-existence or new-existence, and since survival is the strongest of all the instincts, Louis chooses to become a vampire by sucking the blood of Lestat, who therefore becomes a fatherly mentor, and being as 'young' as Louis, a friend and roommate.
Having a couple is another originality introduced by the film and quite necessary because it opens a gate for insightful discussions through Louis' initiation in the vampire world. His first learning is how to kill, something he's extremely reluctant to commit, having still an ounce of humanity in his heart. The life of vampires oscillates between two realities, the beauty of the world in night that seems even more lively and fascinating, an aspect transcended by a dazzling cinematography, and there is the ugliness of their instinct that can only depends its survival on killing lives. Vampires are necessarily evils, and this poisons Louis's conscience, he who shouts to Lestat that he sentenced him to hell.
The killing scenes create an unsettling mix of gruesomeness and sensuality sublimated by the beautiful period setting, reminding Hitchcock's motto: to shoot murders like love scenes and vice versa. There is indeed something strangely sensual going between the reserved Louis and the flamboyant Lestat culminating when Louis bites the neck of a little orphan who lost her mother during the plague, and Lestat saves her by giving his blood. Little Claudia is reborn through a symbolic process that involved the two vampires.
Claudia genuinely loves Louis while she's educated by Lestat, and unlike Louis, she didn't have time to be a human and plenty enough to become a ruthless killer. The film features a long sequence where Claudia's talent hidden behind a mask of cuteness is revealed with a nice touch of black comedy. Without giving away obvious sexual undertones, there is no way not to see them as a family, making the friendship between Louis and Lestat ambiguous and between Louis and Claudia sort of incestuous, especially since she had the maturity of a young woman trapped in a child's body. The plurality of characters provides more insightful questions about the vampire's conditions and their roots.
Indeed, while Louis' torments were more about what was wrong or right, about the necessity of killing, and being evil despite conscience, Claudia discovers in a pivotal scene set some decades after, that she will never be desired like a woman. Louis wanted to be good despite his nature, Claudia to be desired. Kirsten Dunst delivers one of the greatest child performances on an Oscar worthy level. The film takes a sort of mythological turn when they both plot against their own creator. Louis, in a sort of Oedipian movie, kills his own 'father' to become Claudia's only father, so she can live in an incestuous symbiosis with her. Claudia makes him more human and he makes her more desired.
The film's third act illustrates the impossibility for this relationship to be maintained when the two vampires go to discover their roots, in Paris. They are disappointed by the level of buffoonish decadence striking this underworld. Armand, the leader, played by Antonio Banderas feels in Louis, an innocence absent in the other vampires, and wants to keep him with, this confirms the initial sexual undertones of the Louis and Lestat duo, creating a dramatic love triangle, encouraging Claudia to find another kind of love, a mother, but the love will be shortcut, as she'll get lynched by the vampire posse, to pay for Lestat's death.
The film ends with a weight in Louis' heart which is less a failure than a relieving deception. Instead of looking at the roots, Louis, freed from Claudia's love and Lestat's tutorship, becomes the vampire his own way, finding catharsis through cinema. The deception in Louis' heart is nothing compared to the journalist who doesn't understand how Louis didn't measure the extent of his power. Louis' brutal reaction, grabbing him to the ceiling with his first monstrous shot is the noblest thing he ever did, sparing a life so it measures the true value of its mortality.
Unfortunately, the journalist will probably have to learn the lesson the hard way, through Lestat and ... the infamous choice he never had .