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		List Price: $29.99		Label: Zeitgeist Films Salesrank: 33134 Released: May 18, 2004
		Our Price: $17.38
		Used Price: $18.17
		MPAA Rating: Unrated Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
After garnering widespread acclaim with his mini-masterpiece THE HEART OF THE WORLD, red hot cult auteur Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD) has taken on the world’s most adapted horror tale and concocted his most original and ravishingly stylized cinematic creation yet. Beautifully transposing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire yarn from stage to screen, Maddin has forged a sumptuous, erotically charged feast of dance, drama and silent film techniques. The black-and-white, blood-red-punctured DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN’S DIARY is a Gothic grand guignol of the notorious Count and his bodice-ripped victims, fringed with the expressionistic strains of Gustav Mahler.

Dracula - Pages from a Virgin's Diary Reviews:
Mahler and Maddin, Dracula and Dance, Weird and Wonderful
2009-11-24 - This is Guy Maddin's first feature that started as a commissioned work that he didn't originate, and in this case didn't write the screenplay to either. Very different stylistically from his next film, Cowards Bend the Knee, this is the film of a ballet by Mark Godden for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, based on Bram Stoker's novel, with music taken from Gustav Mahler's first and second symphonies. Not typical Maddin material at first glance perhaps but the psychosexual nature of the Dracula story melds surprisingly well with Maddin's aesthetic, offering a more dreamlike and romantic vampire tale than usual, but also one in which the violence and hatred in the bigoted Victorian English men who confront the vampire is made almost as explicit as Dracula's own hunger.

I'm not going to go into any great detail about the story; suffice it to say that young Lucy Westernra (Tara Birtwhistle) is seduced by Dracula, turns vampire and is ultimately killed; her husband-to-be has enlisted the aid of Van Helsing (David Moroni) who tracks Dracula to his lair by means of a new potential victim, Mina (CindyMarie Small) being used as bait. Finally, a confrontation between the lord of the night (Wei-Qiang Zhang) and Van Helsing's group ensues in the vampire's underground abode.

As I said above, very different-looking from the succeeding COWARDS BEND THE KNEE - and indeed rather different from any of the director's other films. Much of the film is shot in sharp and crisp 35MM as opposed to his more usual super-8 and 16mm (though I believe he uses some of those as well), many of the shots are longer and more fluid, and there is a dramatic use of color, digitally painted on in just a few bold strokes - red blood on the neck, Dracula's bold and frighteningly large red cloak, green money, yellow digital titles. The longer, more "balletic" and graceful shots contrast strongly with the rapid cutting in the action scenes and really help to highlight the sense of fear and unearthliness, and the casting of a Chinese-canadian as the dreaded count emphasizes the xenophobia inherent in the novel and in the Victorian mindset generally.

Gustav Mahler was a rough contemporary of Stoker's, and his first two symphonies premiered in the early 1890s roughly when Stoker was writing Dracula. I've been a huge fan of Mahler for years and at first I wondered how appropriate these works would be, but they fit this work almost like a glove - the glory of nature expressed in the first movement of the first symphony perfectly expresses the freedom that this bold, sexual and luminous being Dracula brings to the young repressed maidens of stuffy English society, and the "Resurrection" symphony (the second) is perfectly appropriate to many of the themes inherent in the vampire story. Also, their placement as late romantic works on the cusp of modernity seems to jibe well with Maddin and Godden's vision of Dracula as a 20th century, threatening, alien creature who may offer promise and a bold and liberated way in the world, but who the world is just not ready for.

Beautifully and expressively danced, wonderfully shot and edited, if there's a problem here it's that Maddin's trademark strange humor seems to me at times a little out of place -- many of the titles are deliberately exaggerated, particularly at the beginning of the film. But this is a small qualm, and the beauties and emotional power of the story soon leave the few goofy elements behind. Gorgeous and visionary and proof that Maddin can do quite well with someone else's ideas to work from.

DVD NOTE: none of Maddin's wonderful shorts here, but the making-of featurette is, as usual with such things accompanying his films, fairly useful and fun. The piece on set constructin is also valuable; I haven't sampled the commentary, but Maddin's a great, enthusiastic commentator on both his own work and his influences generally and I doubt he'll disappoint here.

I already knew it,having recently seen the film in a Guy Maddin ret
2009-11-21 - trospective.This purchase was for a gift which,was sent just before Halloween.I hope that it was what I indended to order/send:That starred Wei Zhiang as Dracula,but was not by him .the filmed performaneI saw was beautiful,nostalgic,and in all the right ways,strange

How many ballets have you seen where someone is beheaded by a shovel?
2009-07-23 - I'll bet you haven't seen many ballets where a character was beheaded by a shovel, have you? Well, actually, except for this, I haven't seen ANY ballets, so this will have to do. And the scene with the shovel, well, it's not terribly graphic, so don't get TOO excited. But, it's there.

Guy Maddin plus the Royal Winnipeg Ballet take on Dracula, and this is like no Dracula you've seen. It's both beautiful and creepy, and even at the same time. If you have no tolerance for the "fine arts", you may want to just shy away from this. I'm no fan of opera OR ballet, but I am a great fan of Guy Maddin, and with his hand in this, guaranteed, it's more than tolerable.

Not sure why people have panned this, but hey, not everyone is a fan of Maddin & his strange work. Personally, this is not my absolute favorite of all he's done but I still enjoyed it, it's very strange, and will remain with me & all the rest of my Guy Maddin stuff for the duration. 4 out of 5.

Bore-ing!
2009-03-11 - If you just love to sit around and watch ballets that seem to drag on forever then you might like this. The premise (and the title) sounded very intriguing and since I already own the original Nosferatu and Herzog's remake, as well as John Malkovich's take on the story (which is excellent), I'd hoped it would be an undiscovered gem of the same vein. But this ballet does not equate to an entertaining good time for me or the average American.

I thought I'd like the cinephotography, set designs, and even choreography, but was mistaken. There are a few good moments where the angles, lighting, costumes, sets, all combine to make a striking visual image, but these moments are few and far between. As in any ballet time seems to drag unmercifully as the dancers scoot back and forth, seemingly without rhyme or reason and without advancing the story in any appreciable way.

Certainly don't recommend this to anyone who doesn't have a history of attending and enjoying ballet performances. I'd rather see a DVD of a Twyla Tharp performance from 18 years ago that was choreographed to Talking Heads. But then I'm not a ballet fan.

NOTE: If you're looking for what is promised by this performance, striking visuals in a unique and creative style similar to the original Nosferatu, then try the German film Vampyr from 1932. It is an under-rated masterpiece.

Run. Away. Fast.
2009-02-14 - This video is based on a balletic interpretation of Dracula done by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet of Canada. It is, in my opinion, the most confusing ,senseless, useless piece of cinematic dreck I have ever seen. I challenge anyone - and I am perfectly serious - to make any sense out of or construct what even in the most ludicrous sense of the word could be defined as a narrative line out of this mess. In short, it is awful and I'm sorry I spent even a dime on it. I once worked for the ballet company and the ballet itself is marvelous. BTW, the rating star is a lie. It isn't even worth that.