the audience applauded

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A feminist persian vampire western with mesmerising black and white cinematography. The atmosphere itself makes it a great experience. Then there is the performances that are perfectly captured and even the cat does a fantastic job.

Set in Iran, but filmed in California, this is a simple tale of a hip, young guy called Arash who falls in love with a mysterious girl that happens to be a vampire. Beautifully filmed in black & white with a fantastic soundtrack this touches on issues such as addiction, greed, sex and love. Well acted, including Masuka the cat who gets a well deserved credit. Some people may be put off by it being Persian language, which would be a shame. I certainly look forward to watching it again.

Only cinema can do this. Only cinema can depict a Persian vampire- woman in a chador skateboarding down a lamplit street and make it work, can make it surreal and stunning and totally germane to the plot. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is full of such moments, full of gratuitous genius, black humour and cinematic magic.Filmed in monochrome, the minimalist dialogue in subtitled Farsi, the action takes place in 'Bad City', Bakersfield Ca. standing in for Iran. Our hero is Arash (Arash Marandi), a James Dean wannabe with a flash American car he explains took him 2,191 working days (exactly six years including one leap year) to buy. Arash dutifully cares for his ageing, heroin-addicted father, who owes money to a ferally abusive pimp and drug dealer played with evil gusto by Dominic Rains. The dealer takes Arash's treasured automobile in part payment of the father's drug debts. In a vast, bleak night space of almost Soviet immensity, Rains's character treats one of his prostitutes with laconic cruelty, abusing her and ejecting her from Arash's car. She sobs on the ground. Watching from a distance is a silent sentinel, nun-like in her chador, the Girl Who Walks Home Alone At Night.Named only as 'The Girl' in the credits, this is Sheila Vand's avenging dark angel. 'I have done bad things,' she tells Arash further down the story. 'I am bad.' She brings herself wordlessly to the pimp's attention, meeting his eyes with an impassive sadism reminiscent of Rooney Mara's character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. In his cocaine-fuelled hubris he takes her home. It does not end well for him.Arash, now travelling by bicycle, goes to his work as a gardener and handyman. 'Shaydah the Princess', the daughter of the house where he is working, is a flirtatious, spoiled little rich girl, chatting mindlessly on her cellphone and assessing the result of her rhinoplasty in the mirror. He spots her jewelled earrings on the dresser and gives way to temptation. He wants his car back. He takes the earrings to the pimp's house, arriving just as The Girl is leaving.Inside, he discovers the pimp's mutilated, blood-drained body. On the coffee table is a briefcase stuffed with cash and drugs. He empties it, takes his car keys, and flees.One more scene remains to round off the film's characterisations. The Girl confronts a skateboarding boy, repeatedly demanding -- her face twisted with passion and menace -- 'Are you a good boy? Are you?' She will be watching him, she threatens; she will rip out his eyes and feed them to the dogs if he transgresses. The terrified boy runs away, leaving his skateboard.Arash, driving his reclaimed and beloved car, arrives at a costume party dressed as Count Dracula, his pockets stuffed with the pimp's drugs and cash. Shaydah is there with her friend the 'Skeleton Party Girl', actually a cameo role played by the film's writer and director Ana Lily Amirpour. Drugs are taken. Arash, rejected by Shaydah, finds himself in the street, tripping, lost in Bad City. He is staring at a street lamp, entranced by the light, when The Girl comes skateboarding past.If all stories are ultimately about the search for love, here is the central dynamic of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Under the street light is Arash, the holy innocent, dressed up for a party as the vampire Dracula. Into his life comes The Girl, a genuine vampire killer, on a skateboard. Light Angel and Dark Angel are brought together in a bizarre, comic coincidence. How will this play out?No backstory is given for The Girl, no explanation of how she became who and what she is. We are left to assume that it is something primally dark. Yet something in the character of Arash touches her, something that softens her hard and murderous heart. And something in her draws Arash. Their instinctive, developing symbiosis is brilliantly symbolised by a scene in which he pierces her ears with a safety pin in order to present her with the diamond earrings he stole from Shaydah. She accepts the pain, she accepts the jewels, she accepts the proffered love. The vampire-woman is not tamed -- you can never see that happening -- but she is shown a new and different life beyond the blighted, heartless wasteland of Bad City.Amirpour has created a masterpiece of atmosphere and vision, aided and underpinned by an eclectic soundtrack of mingled Western and Persian pop. The backdrop is nominally Iran, actually California, a setting which in itself produces an austere, strangely familiar Everyplace -- the landscape of the lost soul -- where cruelty, selfishness and existential absurdity besiege from all quarters the simple human longing for Love. There are recurring moments of crazy beauty. The editing could have been a little tighter, which is why I give A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night nine stars instead of a faultless 10. But that is a quibble; every character, every performance, burns into the memory. Amirpour's writing and directing creates a world where the outlandish becomes more real than the superficial 'reality' we inhabit in our daily lives. Once again, only cinema can do this. Breathtaking.

A calm, alluring & subversive art-house endeavour from Ana Lily Amirpour in what's her feature film debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is as impressive as it is unconventional, as beautiful as it is brooding, and as hypnotic as it is haunting. Touted as "the first Iranian vampire western", it is a fascinating blend of horror, romance & western that's original, meditative & masterly composed.Set in an Iranian ghost-town that reeks of death & loneliness, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night tells the story of a lonesome vampire that wanders the desolate streets at night; stalking, killing or protecting whoever she deems fit. But things change when she comes across a guy who's just as lost as her and, in an effort to connect with each other, something beautiful is born between the two.Written & directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is crafted with stunning restraint & presents the up-n-coming filmmaker in absolute control of her craft. Lily Amirpour's direction exudes both patience & confidence as she spins her own take on the vampire folklore with this twisted fable of two lost souls without giving in to genre conventions, and isn't afraid to employ silence as a powerful & effective tool.For a debut feature, it is an incredibly sophisticated effort, and Lily Amirpour not only exhibits her firm grip on storytelling elements but all filmmaking aspects. The story takes place in Bad City, an Iranian town in the middle of nowhere, and the deserted locations, vacant streets & fraction of denizens add to its graveyard like aura while the resurfacing shots of drilling pumps perpetually sucking oil out of Earth serves as an interesting companion to its vampiric themes.The script is only concerned with the doings of two characters, Arash & The Girl, and the rest of the town's inhabitants are discerned by simple tags assigned to them. What's also admirable is that it is never in a hurry to switch to the next moment and actually embraces the silence & emptiness that permeates every frame, which in turn contributes to its somber tone & funereal gloominess. But there are also times when its extended takes bring the narrative to a standstill.Shot in crisp black-n-white, Cinematography brings an elusive quality to the whole picture with its static camera-work, skillful use of slow-mo technique & beautifully composed shots, and further intensifies its otherworldly setting. Another one of my favourite aspects is its mesmerising soundtrack, comprising of sensibly chosen tracks that are evocative and always in check with the emotional requirements of any given moment.Coming to the performances, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night features a committed cast in Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Mozhan Marnò, Marshall Manesh, Dominic Rains & Rome Shadanloo, and each one of them get sufficient time on screen. Vand's subtle expressions & unwavering gaze turns her silent showcase into the most impressive performance in the movie and she is brilliantly supported by the rest of the cast, each playing their part with utmost conviction.On an overall scale, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a somber effort that's elegiac in its approach, dreamlike in its presentation, and subdued in its addressing of topical themes. Crafted with care & intimacy, it promises an etherial, absorbing & aesthetically fulfilling experience to those willing to embrace its slow-burn narrative and marks a promising start to Ana Lily Amirpour's filmmaking career. Although its fangs aren't as deeply embedded as I would have liked, this thoughtful meditation on loneliness is still a delightful discovery that's worthy of a broader audience.