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apoloadonisandnarcissus · 3 days ago

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"What kind of trauma, pain and violence is so great that even death cannot stop it?": Reincarnation in "Nosferatu" (2024)

I already talked about this extensively in another post (and even did some brainstorming on Eggers' Orlok possible backstory) but I want to come back to this topic, because this is probably my favorite theme in this film, mostly because it’s left so ambiguous, and I’ve come across more interviews and got more evidence.

A little introduction: Robert Eggers doesn’t want us to know the backstory on his Count Orlok, but he wrote a novella on it and gave it to Bill Skarsgård, for preparation. We know he’s a 16th century Transylvanian nobleman, from the 1580s (“lord” and “lordship”), he’s not Vlad the Impaler (15th century), he was a voivode (warlord), a enchanter/sorcerer (Şolomanari) and he was married, and had a family. "That will never be shared because the mystery of the enigma is better for an audience, but it was important for Bill to have that history." Eggers needs to release his novella on Orlok backstory, because I want to know!

And this backstory actually influenced Bill’s entire performance, as Robert Eggers reveals in one interview: “And while Bill was also doing what I was asking for, he brought more to the table too, particularly with binding moments where Orlok was vulnerable. I was so sick of the tropes of the sad vampire that I didn't want to go there. But Bill knew that it was important to still have the vulnerability in some places. And I think it makes the performance.”

Including the ending: “I sent [Bill] a backstory of Orlok that I wrote. So we came to it together to achieve what I was after. Because I’m so tired of the heroic and sad vampires, I was just like, ‘He’s a demon. He’s so evil.’ Bill was like, ‘Yeah, but there needs to be some times where he has some kind of vulnerability.’ It’s very subtle, and it’s not there often, but it is enough. I think the ending of the movie is much more effective than it would have been without Bill’s acute sensitivity to that – while still delivering on this big, scary, masculine the vampire”.

We have Bill to thank for Orlok’s more nuance performance, because Eggers’ initial idea was cardboard demon, due to his aspiration of making vampires scary again. But this tell us something else (I already suspected): Orlok’s backstory is definitely tragic and sad. Hence Eggers saying he didn’t want the “sad vampire” but Bill said vulnerability was necessary to add depth to the character. And thank Bill for that, because, personally, I can’t stand one-dimensional characters, even “demonic” ones.

The prologue of the film (between Ellen and Orlok) is based on this material: “Most importantly, I was thinking, ‘Who are these characters, and how can I build out their backstories and make them real people?’ I also wanted our version to be Ellen’s story. The previous Nosferatu films start out as Thomas Hutter’s story, or Jonathan Harker’s, and then become Ellen’s story, but I wanted it to always be her story. Our film’s prologue comes from the work I did with the novella.”

When discussing the use of Dacian and the reconstruction process, Robert Eggers revealed Orlok is a very ancient being: "Orlok is an ancient noble, predating even the foundations of the Romanian Empire."

This tells us we are, indeed, dealing with reincarnation in this story, because the "Count Orlok" in the film is a late 16th century corpse, with a whole boyar and vovoide backstory, the sovereign of a Transylvanian county (count). But he’s also a priest-shaman follower of Zalmoxis, the Dacian God of life and death, and owner of the secrets of immortality. Reincarnation being true immortality actually makes perfect sense; and it’s also a theme in one of the most iconic “Dracula” films of all time, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Francis Ford Coppola.

"Ellen’s most prominent evening dress is indigo with lilacs embroidered and beaded on the front and on the sleeves. This lavender hue subliminally underscores the connection between Ellen and Orlok, who remembers lilacs from when he was alive." Nosferatu costumes link Ellen and Count Orlok Interview

Ellen is the lead character, and Robert Eggers says he wanted to tell his version of this story "through the eyes of the female protagonist", and "it is a tale of love and obsession and a Gothic romance” and he even said Ellen and Orlok are "beyond love". What's intriguing to me is why is his Orlok so obsessed with Ellen, specifically. Why does he want her soul forever at his side? Why is he dragging her to her grave? Because this is his motivation in this story. He’s not after world domination nor anything. Ellen’s soul by his side for all eternity is what he wants (and gets, at the end).

I think the answer can be in his interviews about Balkan and Slavic folklore, because there is one idea that seems to be on his mind:

The most important thing was going back to the folklore and the early Balkan and Slavic folklore [...] Most surprisingly, many of these early folk vampires do not even drink blood; rather, they might suffocate their victims to death or spread plague and disease. Some early folk vampires when disinterred from their grave were noted for having erections. Some of them came back to fornicate with their widows until the women died of an excess of intercourse. If they did drink blood, it was generally not from the throat, but the chest – the victim’s “heart blood.” You can still find reports of vampirism from the Balkan regions, where the folklore is thoroughly enmeshed with local culture. What are we to make of stories like this? What kind of trauma, pain and violence is so great that even death cannot stop it? It’s a heartbreaking notion. The folk vampire embodies disease, death, and sex in a base, brutal and unforgiving way. ‘I had to make the vampire as scary as possible’: Nosferatu’s Robert Eggers on how folklore fuelled his film

Which is something he will mention again:

“You wonder what is the dark trauma that doesn't die when someone dies. […] [So you suspect something terrible happened between them in real life and that this story was a way of grappling with that?] That's my hypothesis.” Robert Eggers Reveals the Ghastly True Tales Behind His New Nosferatu

In Romanian folklore, when strigoi (which is what Orlok is and this is his lore) raise from their grave the first time, they return to those they have loved the most, because they wish to relive their life together. The strigoi usually torment them until they are dead, too. Which is exactly what we see in “Nosferatu” (2024) with Orlok and Ellen.

From the film itself we know he was dead and rotting since the late 16th century until Ellen brought him back from the dead and cursed him to be a strigoi. At the prologue. And, in true strigoi myth, he appears at her window, asking for entrance.

The evidence that Ellen is the reincarnation of Orlok’s wife or lover or bride is palpable in this story, not only in the entire folklore that inspired it, but in the dialogue itself. In another post, I already analyzed Ellen and Orlok’s backstory (after the prologue and before Ellen marriage to Thomas), and Orlok never actually took her as his lover, in the sense there was no “astral sex” going on between them, and what she was doing was masturbation and him as a haunting (still creepy, but he didn’t actually touch her).

But still she’s absolutely convinced he did, and then we have all the connection with the lilacs, from both of them; yes, it’s meant to be a visual storytelling device to represent their relationship, but these flowers are also connected to rebirth, and, according to Linda Muir, recall Orlok from his human life. Ellen is also deeply attracted to Orlok, and only him can understand and fulfill her, but she doesn’t know why. It’s unconscious.

“Yet I cannot be sated without you. Remember how once we were? A moment. Remember?”

In other post, I already discussed the use of the term "sated". Because Orlok (being from the late 16th century) speaks Old English; where this word is connected to the verb “sit”, as in “rest” or “lie”. What Orlok is actually saying is “I cannot rest without you”. Which makes sense with their covenant of being together ever-eternally. He can’t find peace in death without her.

Even the way Bill delivers this line “remember how once we were?” sounds haunted, and a profound yearning and desperation, almost, for her to remember something very old. To me, this is most likely one of those “vulnerable moments” inspired by Orlok’s backstory Robert Eggers was talking about in interviews.

“Remember?”

The option that makes more sense with Ellen and Orlok in “Nosferatu” (2024) is the myth of strigoi coming back to have sex with their widows until they died of excess of intercourse; which is exactly what happens at the end. And the sound design even made sure we, the audience, heard the penetration. Is this the reason why?

But then we have the idea that Eggers mentions twice: what kind of trauma, pain and violence is so great that even death cannot stop it? What is the dark trauma that doesn't die when someone dies?

In “Nosferatu”, it’s Ellen who resurrects Orlok. It’s her sadness, loneliness and sexual awakening which brings him back from the dead. So, can this “trauma” be related to Ellen’s soul, herself? She’s the protagonist, and this is her story. The emotions we are dealing with at the prologue (inspired by Orlok’s backstory, according to Robert Eggers) are; deep loneliness, without a companion to give her comfort and tenderness. And even sexual desire. As a result she resurrects Orlok with her black magic prayer (necromancy).

He also calls her enchantress; and he was a enchanter in life. And indeed, Ellen displays insane spiritual power in this film; Herr Knock needs to assemble a whole ritual room to communicate with Orlok, and she doesn’t need any of that. Which might indicate, she was an actual enchantress in her past life; probably a Şolomonari like Orlok himself. Von Franz does say she could have been a “great priestess” in Pagan times.

We have a lot of Sex Magick in this film (pretty much every Şolomonari ritual is a Sex Magick ritual here). Which, again, can imply it was their “thing” in a past life, too, because their relationship is very sexual and passionate, which is probably how they were, previously, since they both have high sex drives (and this is what Orlok asks her to remember). Orlok the high priest, and Ellen the high priestess. Two freaks in the sheets (and probably in the streets too, Ellen appears to enjoy the outdoors). We are told she has a deep knowledge of the shadow side of life, after all, and she’s an outsider and completely misunderstood (except by Orlok and Von Franz).

Him being a demonic creature, means he cannot love her now (even though Eggers is also making a difference between Thomas (love) and Orlok (passion)), it doesn’t mean he didn’t love her in the past. Especially since this is a direct reference to the “Dracula” novel where one of the bride accuses Dracula of not being able to love, to which he answers; “Yes, I too can love. You yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?” This can indicate that Orlok did love her in their human past life (or lives, even), and fiercely, deeply so.

Searching for clues in Orlok’s castle scenes with Thomas (I already talked about the multiple sarcophagus in the crypt in the other post), Orlok attacks him in a bedroom, and in a double bed, meant for a couple, and it has two pillows (unlike the Victorian couples here, who have separate single beds). Even at the end, Ellen and Orlok are joined in one bed, Ellen’s bed.

Since this was also a Sex Magick ritual to divorce him from Ellen in the spiritual realm, doing it in this specific bedroom (that Orlok selected for him in advance), doesn’t seem random. Maybe this was Orlok’s and Ellen’s bedroom? And she even makes an appearance here.

But Orlok’s soul did not “ascend” (sort of speak), because he says he was in the “darkest pit” as a “loathsome beast”. And, again, in Old English, “loathsome” has another meaning, connected to “grievous”, as in “grief”. He was in some sort of limbo, and when Ellen called out, he returned to his former body, and became a strigoi. So, their emotions match, at the prologue. And if Ellen is a reincarnation of Orlok’s wife or lover, this means her soul moved on to the next life, and his didn’t; causing their further separation. Which can be the explanation on why Orlok is so obsessed in getting her soul this time around; for them not to be apart, again.

And, if we follow this logic, he probably died before she did, in their past life. And that trauma endured on her soul. She probably tried to resurrect him in past, as well? Or was it the other way around? Either way, someone died first, probably in a tragic and violent way and it caused a huge trauma on their souls, for both of them. Since “sex and death” are the core themes here, it’s not unlikely to find them in these characters backstories, too, I would say.

And can this separation of souls create such pain and a trauma so dark it created an actual monster to bring plague and death upon civilization because of their yearning of being united, once again?

Ellen is also said to be “promised” and “fated” to Orlok. Even Von Franz says to Thomas “in vain, you ran in vain. You cannot out-run her destiny!” Is Ellen’s fate to break the curse (she put on him, herself) or for her soul to be united with Orlok’s for all eternity?

In my original post I talked about the hypothesis of human Orlok being among the boyar rebels supporters of Balthasar Báthory for the throne of Transylvania, and was arrested for treason and strangled in prison (he obviously wasn’t beheaded), in 1593. We also have a woman and accusations of witchcraft as retaliation for the death of these noblemen. This in the midst of religious turmoil between Protestants and Catholics (with Balthasar Báthory being on the Protestant side).

This hypothesis checks a lot of boxes; the dates we have for Orlok (1580-1590s; late 16th century); the age Robert Eggers says he is, at the time of his death (55-years-old); offers an explanation for his “asmatic” speech, Eggers was very particular about (his vocal chords are damaged); and fits the prologue (where Orlok “strangles” Ellen, when he reveals himself).

This would also fit the "revenge on Christian civilization" subtext of Orlok as a plague carrier, bringing death and destruction to the Christian West. Them being separated because of a Christian conflict, and Orlok executed at the orders of a Catholic prince, would add layers of “dark trauma” to this.

Count Orlok bust by Prosthetics and Make-up designer, David White; his neck does appear damaged.

At the prologue, we also have a sexual encounter (masturbation), in a garden of lilacs. And at the end, lilacs are placed by Von Franz around their bodies, symboling their return to their garden. Which is another connection to Orlok’s human backstory, further strengthening the reincarnation theme.

The last shot of the film (while being “Death and the maiden” motif) is also reminiscent of the ending of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Francis Ford Coppola, where Vlad soul ascends to join Elisabeta’s. In "Nosferatu" (2024) it's both, Orlok and Ellen's souls ascending, together, finally united, which makes way more sense with the reincarnation theme.

#Nosferatu 2024 #count Orlok 2024 #count Orlok 2024 backstory #Robert Eggers #Ellen Hutter 2024 #nosferatu 2024 interview #bill skarsgård

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