Poster of The Countess

The Countess

Biography, Drama, History

Director: Julie Delpy

Release Date: June 25, 2009

Where to Watch

I enjoyed The Countess even though it was deeply flawed. Julie Delpy starred and directed The Countess, and she chose to follow all takes on the historical figure Elizabeth Báthory instead of choosing one and discrediting or not emphasizing the others. Did Báthory clearly show signs of being a serial killer even at a young age? Yes. Was she a powerful woman who was framed and discredited by men who coveted her property and autonomy? Yes. Was she a vain woman obsessed with youth and beauty to an aberrant extreme driven by madness and love? Yes. Was she a woman who dabbled in the supernatural and witchcraft? Yes. It is more fiction than historical, which is fine. At times, I thought the film was going into an explicit Count Dracula as vampire direction with The Countess, but it wasn’t. Delpy wants to do a lot of things, but as a comprehensive whole, the theses conflict, yet it does not detract from the overall story. I’m not sure how Delpy managed to pull that off, but she did. I’m not sure why she chose to cast William Hurt and have everyone speak in accented English instead of Hungarian-probably funding and maybe she doesn’t speak Hungarian, but it was a mistake. I also think that it was wrong to frame the narrative as if it was from the perspective of her male lover, who had no way of knowing the majority of the events that unfolded in The Countess. I think that Delpy was brave to play an unsympathetic monstrous woman that is really close to a common stereotype of the unsympathetic monstrous woman without actually falling into that trap. I’m not sure how she managed to walk that tightrope. I think that Delpy courageously confronted some of her feelings about being the stereotypically sexy French actress and is going in a different direction when she is at the helm.

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