A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 2.0

Jarmusch in Farsi ... sounds better in theory than on screen. A female vampire (Sheila Vand) stalks the streets of "Bad City" (supposedly Iran, but more like Los Angeles) for prey but eventually meets another lost soul (Arash Marandi), who sells drugs and has a father addicted to heroin: together, the two of them try to flee the area. The script is underdeveloped (the 'subplots' lead nowhere) and it's best viewed as an aesthetic exercise in which Amirpour tries to meld her love of Western movies (as with Gosling's Lost River, you can exhaust yourself citing influences) with her Iranian roots: a cultural mash-up. I never felt much compassion or understanding for any of the characters, but they're there more to be looked at than empathized with, and the lady certainly has a strong visual sense (a dreamy love sequence with Vand and Marandi set to White Lies' "Death" is so pronounced it basically stops the movie). As for more female directors making experimental works: I cannot champion this enough.