Accidental Histfic Finds

There are times my openness to consuming trash entertainment actually finds me a decent piece of work, and today was one of those times.  Feeling like watching a bit of histfic, and maybe a chunk of sensationalism with it, I Netflicked up The Countess, a tale of Elizabeth Bathory (whom some may recognize as "The Blood Countess").  History may condemn her as the most prolific serial killer of all time - or study her, as the feminine victim of political and gender conspiracy - but I fully expected the movie to follow most pop-cultural representations of Erzebet:  as the youth-obsessed witch bathing in virgins' blood.

Hey, I never pretended I was all class in my pop-cultural consumption.  Anyone who came here expecting rarefied intellectualism was steered very wrong.

However, it was a *very* pleasant surprise indeed to end up watching a pretty intelligent and engaging production altogether unlike what I had expected.  There are two massive plot problems (one, a man desiring connection to a wealthy noble family inexplicably forbidding his son to marry into it - and two, the choice to leave unambiguous during the course of the film a conclusion which then at the end of the film is very engagingly drawn into question), but the writing, production, key casting, and even much of the costuming is pretty good.  Costuming is always a problem, in historical productions - but the ways in which liberties were chosen to be taken in this case were at least fairly intelligent, and intelligible.  But the overall design was nicely dour, even sere, where it should be, and the use of the honey-tinted romanticism suited filmic expectations of the genre well.  Julie Delpy, a one-woman show of sorts (director, lead, even musical composer apparently), has a fan in me.

This is an example, too, of the choices of *fiction* we make in producing historical fiction.  They lay down an obsession with youth, not in shorthand, but in the thread of a plot in no way suggested by history itself.  Erzebet indulges a brief affair with a younger man which affects her throughout the rest of the movie, and provides a nice structure for the plot and themes.  And this movie actually contains themes - reasonably well thought out ones, and nicely written.  Even better, the performances are all good.  Apart from the always-inexplicable presence of William Hurt (what is with him and historicals anyway - it's never, ever going to work, ever), casting is well done, and there are a number of actors who even look like PEOPLE - even period-appropriate people.  The one really clanging disaster is the fairly lurid cover art for the picture.

So what I expected to be a guilty pleasure turned out to be a real one, and I'd recommend it for Tudorphiles (setting is around the first decade of the 17th century - or even the close of the 16th - but not specifically nailed down, given costuming liberalities and a flexible relationship to the real Countess' timeline), those interested in *less* well trodden stories of the same period not involving the English crown, vampire enthusiasts of course, and those just generally interested in history - or even historical true crime, of which there is an interesting and varied abundance.

If these may rank among your interests (and, if not, why are you here? heh), give "The Countess" a try, and feel free to come back here with comments on what you think.