Story of My Death (2013) review

Locked away in his mansion (and surrounded by treasures), Venetian writer/lover Giacomo Casanova (Vicenç Altaió) talks to his butler Pompeu (Lluís Serrat) about knowing (and feuding) with Voltaire and mentions plans to start writing his memoirs (while eating fruits and struggling to defecate) - on a trip south of the Carpathians, he finds himself in the same area as Dracula (Eliseu Huertas), who is busy agonizing over draining lovely young damsels of their blood.  The very idea of trying to merge these two narratives - and, I'm guessing, to "demystify"/"deconstruct" both of them - is extremely ambitious (if not outright foolhardy), but Serra has an impressive amount of confidence in himself (and in the audience's ability to endure his meditative nature): I don't fully think it comes together, and the longer it went on the more I found myself engaged with it visually as opposed to intellectually.  There is a little "humor" to be had among the intentional crypticness - Casanova's cackling while fornicating, for example, had me howling.  The cinematography by Jimmy Gimferrer deserves strong praise, too: I've tinkered with the camera he used (the Panasonic AG-DVX100), and it is not easy to make shots look like paintings from centuries ago.