Faithfulness to
the source in a Dracula adaptation is a tricky thing. You can get
the details spot on and miss the flavor entirely. Removing the tale
from its setting, as some versions do, has been especially dicey.
Stoker's novel is
one of British xenophobia of the East, the fear that their women and
their economy were at risk.. If the story of Dracula held any
significant undertone for the Turks – aside from a chance to
besmirched Vlad III – I have no knowledge of it. I expect they
just knew a cracking good story when they read it – or a great
villain. Tvlad Tepes did not endear himself ot the Turks, and it's
not surprising they got in on the action.
Properly told, the
Dracula story has always had a distinctly English flavor to it
beginning with the manners and sensibilities of its characters to its
very proper concern over sexual mores and fear of social/class
contamination. Even the American-based Universal film felt
essentially English. That flavor is not to be found in Drakula
Istanbul'da, though, which transplants the tale to modern-day Turkey.
This movie has a more broadly European feel to it, not far removed
from Italian cinema for a breezy suavity wholly removed from the more
staid English form.
At first the
changes changes are minimal. Azmi (the Harker character) travels to
Romania to meet Dracula at his castle, to arrange the sale of some
properties back home in Istanbul. For thirty five minutes the story
is familiar, adding a hunchbacked servant but marking the first
screen treatment of Dracula's canine fangs, the stolen baby for the
bride (singular, not a trio) to feed upon and the baby's distraught
mother, Dracula's descent of the castle wall, and Azmi's attempt to
kill the sleeping vampire with a shovel. Not for nothing do some
hail this version's fidelity to Stoker.
It is the
appearance of the Mina character that marks a radical alteration.
Mina was a proper young Englishwoman, concerned with Victorian
decency in her own conduct and her worldly outlook. If she looked
forward at all to women of the future it was in her personal bravery
and forthrightness, not I proving a woman's place as an equal...and
certainly not as a sexually autonomous being. Mina was a being of
strict Victorian virtue, and would have been proud of it if pride
were not unladylike.
Her counterpart in
this film, Arzin, is also a woman of virtue but her virtues are
entirely of another age and culture. Where Mina Murray was s
schoolmistress, Arzin Arsoy, is a stage artist, a dancer. whose acts
are fairly sexy for the era. Quite a popular one, too, fending off
advances and being asked to perform of benefits. All the same, Arzin
is an upright woman, faithful to her fiance Azmi. Even so, it would
positively give madame Mina the vapours, as would the way the movie
constantly revels in lead actress Annie Ball's legginess.
Every Dracula
adaptation conveys an air of sexuality, even the subdued likes of the
earlier films, and certainly later films would be even more openly
sensual. However, but most play like exploitation pics: sex is
offered for viewer enjoyment, stoking the lust of the viewer even
while lust is vilified as no less than an evil force. That's quite a
potent conflict, one that film buffs never tire of being stoked by.
If it doesn't work here ...well, I'm not sure the film is even trying
for it. In Drakula Istanbul'da's modern world sexuality is simply
not a scandal. Acting on it wantonly is still a no-no, but it's no
longer a cultural threat.
Thus Drakula loses
a significant bit of his potency as a monster in this version. All
the notes of his portrayal are dead to rights from his look (an older
man imposing of stature, white hair receding from a domed forehead, )
played by Atif Kaptan with a low beastly growl of a voice, keeping a
haughty nature barely stifled. He is of course an undead creature
that drinks the blood of human victims, and that's plenty enough for
a horror fan...but he is no longer the virulent corrupter of the
Christian world (there are no crosses wielded in Drakula
Istanbul'da). Choosing Azmi as his unwilling intended is horror on a
personal scale, not a cultural one. Azmi's circle of friends are
fighting for themselves, not society. Though it's not meant as a
reflection of the movie's budgetary scale, this Drakula is all the
same a monster of regular size.
That's not to
diminish the movie, which went farther than any before it to follow
the plot outline of Stoker's novel. While she awaits Azmi's return,
Arzin has been staying with Sadan whose ailing mother is worried.
Sadan has taken to sleepwalking and suffers mysterious blood losses
every night. A doctor bearing garlic has been called in. The story
is all there, stripped of few beats for time and budget (there is no
Renfield, or anything made of psychic influence. Also presnet is the
same air of anxious nocturnal vigils that fills every telling of
Dracula.
Budget is a factor
you'll have to overlook. The sets are spare, framing often stagey,
fx almost non-existent...Drakula's powers are endowed by his cape, so
robbing him of it saves the filmmakers a lot of money! Good thing,
too, as when he transforms into a bat the result is rather funny.
There is a copy of
the movie currently on You Tube, which is where I saw it (I'd love to
have a DVD). I should warn you that the English subtitles are quite
bad and the film itself needs a restoration. Look past that, Drakula
Istanbul'da a worthy adaptation deserving the attention of any fan
of Dracula.
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