Byzantium is a British-Irish fantasy thriller film directed by Neil Jordan and starring Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, and Jonny Lee Miller. The story concerns a mother and daughter vampire duo. This is the third foray by Jordan into the world of the undead, following the poorly-received High Spirits in 1988 and his Oscar-nominated Interview with the Vampire, in 1994.
A vampire mother and daughter’s dark two-hundred-year history threatens to catch up with them in a run-down hotel on the English coast. Their story begins during the Napoleonic Wars, when young Eleanor (Ronan) was abandoned as Clara (Arterton) was forced into prostitution. Two centuries later, contemplative Eleanor and extroverted Clara are on the run when they seek sanctuary in a dilapidated coastal resort.
There, Clara sets her sights on a lonely soul named Noel (Daniel Mays) who has just inherited the Byzantium Hotel, a once-thriving business that has fallen into disrepair. Before long, the elder vampire has transformed the Byzantium into a makeshift brothel. Meanwhile, Eleanor falls for Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), a waiter who unwittingly draws out the natural storyteller in her. Amidst a string of mysterious disappearances in the sleepy coastal town, Frank realizes that Eleanor’s extraordinary tales are much more than dark fantasy.
About the Story (2013)
The film begins with an old man picking up a discarded note dropped by teenage vampire Eleanor Webb (Ronan), who has taken to writing her life story, but then throwing the individual pages to the wind. Realising what she is, the old man invites Eleanor to his house and tells her his life story, before explaining that he is ready for death. Eleanor proceeds to kill him with a talon grown from her right thumbnail and consume his blood.
Elsewhere, Eleanor’s mother, Clara (Arterton), is chased from the strip club where she has been working by a member of the vampiric Brotherhood named Werner. Werner subdues Clara and forces her to take him back to Clara and Eleanor’s apartment. He demands to know where Eleanor is. Clara decapitates Werner with a garrote, burns his body within the apartment and leaves town with her daughter.
Eleanor and Clara seek sanctuary in a dilapidated coastal resort. There, Clara sets her sights on a lonely soul named Noel (Daniel Mays), who has just inherited the Byzantium Hotel, a once-thriving business that has fallen into disrepair. Meanwhile, Eleanor plays the piano in a restaurant and is approached by a young waiter named Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), who takes a shine to her. Having seduced Noel, Clara turns the Byzantium into a makeshift brothel and Eleanor joins the local college which Frank attends. Interested in her past, Frank questions Eleanor, who writes her story for him to read.
The story, revealed to the viewer in a series of flashbacks over the course of the film, begins during the Napoleonic Wars, when a young Clara, then a fisherman’s daughter, encounters two Royal Navy officers, the cruel Captain Ruthven and the mild-mannered Midshipman Darvell. Much to the dismay of Darvell, Clara leaves with Ruthven, who forces her into prostitution. When Eleanor is born, Clara leaves her daughter at the local private orphanage to spare her life, and secretly visits her at night.
Years later, Clara is dying of what appears to be tuberculosis, and is still one of Ruthven’s favourites when he visits the brothel. One day, the brothel is visited by Darvell, whom Ruthven had believed to have died years earlier. Darvell explains to Ruthven that he has, in fact, become a vampire. The only way a human can become a vampire is by traveling to an unnamed island. The island is home to a being known as “The Nameless Saint” who resides within a small stone shrine. If a human enters the shrine and accepts death the Saint will kill them and they awaken as a “soucriant”… a vampire. Darvell gives Ruthven a map to the island stating Ruthven is a survivor and has all the qualities one needs to become a vampire. After Darvell leaves the brothel, Clara, who was listening to Darvell’s story, shoots Ruthven in the leg, steals the map, makes her way to the island and becomes a vampire.
After she awakens, Clara meets with Darvell who brings her before The Brotherhood, a secret society of vampires who protect the secret of vampirism. As their members have traditionally always been male noblemen, they are appalled that a woman, and a low-born prostitute, has joined their ranks, and contemplate killing her. Their leader, Savella, rules that it would be a violation of their code to kill another vampire unjustly, so they let her go, warning her that she may play no part in their brotherhood, but that they still expect her to follow their code, on pain of death for any violation. For years Clara watches over Eleanor from afar.
When Eleanor is 16 years old, Clara’s decision to spare Ruthven comes back to haunt her. The vengeful captain turns up at Eleanor’s orphanage and rapes her, infecting her with what appears to be syphilis as revenge for Clara stealing his chance at immortality. Clara arrives too late to stop him and kills him in a fit of distress. Now forced to choose between incurring the Brotherhood’s wrath, or watch her daughter die a slow, painful death, Clara takes Eleanor to the island and has her transformed into a vampire, violating the Brotherhood’s code that women are not permitted to create vampires. Clara and Eleanor then spend the next two centuries running from the Brethren’s agents. Clara sustains herself by targeting criminals and other undesirables as her source of blood, while Eleanor targets people who are already dying of old age or sickness, and effectively euthanises them.
Byzantium (2013)
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Barry Cassin, Gemma Arterto, David Heap, Warren Brown, Gabriela Marcinkova
Screenplay by: Moira Buffini
Production Design by: Simon Elliott
Cinematography by: Sean Bobbitt
Film Editing by: Tony Lawson
Costume Design by: Consolata Boyle
Music by: Javier Navarrete
MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence, sexual content and language.
Studio: Number 9 Films
Release Date: June 28, 2013
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