Sebastian Mihailescu follows up his controversial Mammalia with a truly independent film, shot in a few days, in an apartment, with a handful of people, about the year's hot topic: Romanian vampires. It's a proof of concept to making movies outside the established system and without the safety net of being a highly established director. Just don't take the whole thing too literal, because this isn't a wholly literal film.
It follows Catalina, a young artist who wants to shoot a film about her childhood stories/dreams. These feature a revived vampire who kind of resembles a real-life rocker from the early 90s, Mircea Bujoreanu, aka Marchizu'. So together with Roberta, who is to play the young girl of Catalina's stories, the three get together to make something happen.
What, is not very clear, because the movie they were striving for quickly becomes a backdrop to exploring the character of Marchizu' and Catalina's relationship with her estranged father. The limits between reality and fiction are quickly blurred and the viewer is in no position to decide where one ends and the other begins. This is jarring at times and does create some discomfort, but I would take that as the challenge to watching something that isn't easily classifiable.
What truly anchors Vampiru' is the presence of Marchizu', a larger than life character, whose eccentricity is doubled by a certain vulnerability. Bujoreanu has experience working as an extra on film productions, but in this film he proves to be a unique persona. I think the reason why the movie really works is because its two leads, Catalina and Marchizu', are bound together by a sincere solitude, even as they come towards it from very different places.
Mihailescu creates a dynamic visual flow that underpins a number of static scenes, thereby freely blending styles into an unfamiliar whole. It all comes together to tell a story that is almost...forced upon itself. In the sense that the plot and its conclusion appear like an inevitability, especially in the moments when it is discordant with the apparent direction of the movie. But what it lacks in narrative form and substance, it makes up for in style and its free-wheeling exploration of how one can make a movie out of next to nothing.
Vampiru' is a fun, irreverent take on vampirism with a distinctive flair that elevates what could easily have been a throwaway project to something unique and, dare I say it, relatable. The fact that it's not perfectly polished and doesn't just gel together smoothly adds to the charm of Vampiru' Zombi, a modern day testament to guerrilla film-making.
