Gemma Arteton Cleavage. Oh, and Neil Jordan’s Making a Vampire Movie.
by Ben Bussey
I know, few things scream ‘slow news day’ more than some paparazzi cleavage shots. However, in this case it’s worth sitting up taking notice not just because of the cleavage, but also because these are the first images to come from the set of Byzantium, Neil Jordan’s first horror film for some time.
Jordan’s one of those old school directors we don’t see enough of these days who can comfortably flit between genres and styles, going from small, uncoventional indie projects (say, The Butcher Boy or Breakfast on Pluto) to more mainstream studio fare (The Brave One, We’re No Angels); at his best he can combine the two, most notably with The Crying Game. While he’s only ventured sporadically into horror, he’s done some great stuff there. His most famous is Interview With The Vampire, and I’ll admit to a soft spot for his haunted house comedy High Spirits, but for my money he’s never topped the nightmarish fairy tale The Company of Wolves; and what excites me about Byzantium (Ms Arteton’s decollatage aside) are the faint echoes of The Company of Wolves in the official synopsis which has been doing the rounds online (from the screenplay by Moira Buffini, adapted from her stage play):
Two young women arrive in a nameless British smalltown. Their names are not their own. They don’t declare their ages. Their relationship with each other is not clear. Are they sisters, as their assumed identities declare? Or are they mother and daughter? The eldest, Claire (Arteton), takes a job in a pub. The youngest, Eleanor (Saorise Ronan), goes to school.
During a truth exercise in her drama class, Eleanor confesses that she has been alive for over two hundred years and has survived by drinking human blood. Her classmates think she is utterly crazy and Mint, her teacher, puts her in touch with the school counsellor. She makes one friend, Frank, a boy who has been home educated and is as much of an oddity as Eleanor. He tries to get to the bottom of her vampire delusion, thinking it an epic and compelling psychosis. Why would anyone want to be undead?
Frank’s parents believe that Ella is an anorexic – why does she never eat? Eleanor has started to write her life story as a play. She describes Claire’s background as a prostitute in 19th century London and her own as a child in a private orphanage. Meanwhile, things are falling apart. People are disappearing. Are Eleanor and Claire vampires? Or are they troubled young women on the run?
Alright, it doesn’t sound too far removed from Let The Right One In, and we’ve already had two film adaptations of that. But, as The Company of Wolves long since proved, Jordan knows how to do a supernatural take on the turmoils of puberty. And given his track record, I think it’s safe to assume this will be a bit ballsier than some contemporary takes on the vampire mythos… no, I’m not going to use the T word…
So that’s why I think we should be looking forward to Byzantium. Gemma Arteton bulging out of her corset is just the icing on the cake. Very tasty icing, admittedly.
To see a shedload more pics, head over to Socialite Life.
