[Segments of the following review have previously appeared, in varied form, in City Slab Magazine #10.]
There exist very few truly existential works of cinema. Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Taxi Driver, Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day, Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes and, obviously, Orson Welles’s The Trial stand as noteworthy examples. Luckily, the notorious, though consummate, Abel Ferrera is now to be thrown into the philosophical fray with his unabashedly honest The Addiction. The film’s undeniable potency is exhibited in its inclusion in the Arts & Faith’s Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films amid ranking at no less than Number 1 on Peter Bradshaw’s–film critic for The Guardian–all-time top film listing.
Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor), a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of New York is bitten one night by a vampire only to find her previous philosophical reflections not only challenged, but subsequently useless as she attempts reconciling the morality of her need to feed with the subsequent pain and suffering which such will inevitably cause.
Ferrera’s film, at first, seems to mimic George Romero’s Martin to an almost plagiaristic degree until the feature begins to unfold, revealing a highly complex expose upon the nature of free will, dependency, and the nature of inherent evil. Ironically, he presents his narrative in black and white, in direct contrast to the morality of the circumstance in which he has cast his lead. Ingeniously, we watch as Conklin’s victims are comprised to two diametrically-opposed demographics: African American males and Caucasian females, thus dually complimenting the visual mode in which The Addiction is delivered. Not only are we granted such parallelism via Conklin’s prey, but the theme of addiction itself is brought forth by way of the character’s need for knowledge and her conflict with inflicting her ego upon others.
The crux of the film lies in its question of what constitutes responsibility, especially when one is cast in a unfavorable situation in which harm must be enacted at one’s hand. Conklin is assaulted and transformed into the blood-sucking undead against her will (despite the fact that her assailant (Annabella Sciorra) tells her, “Tell me to go like you mean it,” which, under such impromptu and vague terms, makes the ultimatum almost nonsensical). As such, is Conklin liable for creating others such as herself? At first Ferrera would have us say no, that is, until he introduces us to Peina (Christopher Walken), a veteran vampire who purports to not have fed for over thirty years (thus, having transcended vampiric values and precepts, has become the undead Übermensch). Yet, after he descends upon Conklin, are we to assume that his biographical information was a lie or that he was merely sacrificing his decades-long fast in order to teach our novice a lesson in modesty?
Society typically acknowledges that evil occurs when a subject (we have moved well past “person”) is aware of another’s suffering but approaches it apathetically. However, Ferrera once again refuses to provide us with easy answers, for if Conklin could restrain from feeding, and chooses not to, then she is blamable in that she is cognizant of her victim’s pain because she herself recently experienced it. Yet, if she must do so in order to survive, then she–like us mere mortals, who must take the lives of other beings in order to sustain ourselves–is exempt. Of course, this implies a National Socialist, “might makes right” philosophic approach to morality (we are witness to clips of WWII Dachau during the proceedings) which more than one animal rights proponent has previously advocated, but such nonetheless rings all-too-familiar with each and every one of Ferrera’s viewers. Nor does the director, in his coy inversion of the question of virtue in relation to God’s omni benevolence, aide in clarifying matters when he has Conklin make the subjective evaluation, “We are not evil because we do evil. We do evil because we are evil.”
We are also guests to a meditation upon infinity in that Conklin and her kind are forced to confront everlasting life. The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, and his ideals are mentioned explicitly within the film as the director alludes to the dilemma posed by the 19th century thinker that, if we have forever, does such not deplete meaning and value? For example, to read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is considered an accomplishment in that not everyone accomplishes this feat. The impetus of the task’s value is implied to be generated because we only have a set amount of time in which to complete the 1,000-plus page tome, that is, we only have the course of our natural lives to do so. However, if granted eternity, would this not permit us to “get around to it”? As such, even though you might have stopped to read it, doing so is no great feat because, though I might not do the same during the next couple millennia, I still have eternity to read the work. This is the reason that Peina leaves Conklin books by Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre, for these existential thinkers present us with eternity and the theory of nothingness respectively, which–for the newly converted Conklin–are now field guides rather than lofty academic meditations. It is for this metaphorical reason that Conklin invites all of her vampire kinfolk to her graduation party. The usurpation of inconsequential deliberation is signaled when the nighttime predators descend upon the recently validated veins of the philosophy faculty which, in the latter’s terms, now serve a more pragmatic purpose.
Abel Ferrera’s reputation precedes him with The Addiction, one of the greatest and most comprehensive explorations of existentialism, ingeniously brought forth via the metaphor of vampirism. Much like the philosophy itself, Ferrera refuses to attempt to answer any of the complex questions posed as such. Instead, like the master filmmaker he has proven himself to be time and time again, Ferrera presents us with various dilemmas before abruptly leaving, thereby permitting his viewers to come to their own conclusions.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
