Nosferatu has one of the most achingly beautiful, and unforgettably disturbing, final images of the year.
We explore what it means with exclusive insights from Robert Eggers and Lily-Rose Depp.
This article containsmajor spoilers for Robert Eggers Nosferatu.
Somehow though, this warmth makes the final image of the movie that much more painful.
Also, whereas the other two notable versions of this Germanic story, F.W.
His complicity in that altruistic surrender only heightens the sense of melancholy permeating the scene.
There is also release in her final repose.
At long last, she knows what it is to be fulfilled.
It would not be the last.
Whereas Orlok just seems to want Ellen.
It therefore becomes a little bit more of a simple fairy tale.
Its a plea anyone who ever was an adolescentparticularly of a Gothic sensibilitymight recognize.
When Orlok first reaches out to Ellen, it is in a great house of implicit wealth and power.
Their cottage satisfies Ellens material needs.
(A sad reality echoed by the Harding family later in the movie.)
Thomas has provided a respite to Ellens loneliness, but he is no antidote.
Orlok is more than just the wrong kind of guy.
It even became a Renaissance motif, Death and the Maiden.
Von Franz is Eggers voice in the film, offering true pity but also admiration for Ellens plight.
For Ellen, the cost is succumbing to literal darkness.
She is indeed wedding herself to Death made flesh.
As Depp said, It touches a lot on taboo and being drawn to something that scares you.
I think that she really does love Thomas, Depp told me.
Even Orlok says he is nothing but an appetite in the movie.
Her self-actualization is thus accepting that she has the urge to be destroyed.
Perhaps we all do.
Furthermore, she finally found a lover whodidunderstand her needs.
In the end, Von Franz throws more dying flowers on Ellens true grave in that final shot.
Theyre yet more mementos of beautiful things that will soon rot and decay.
Nosferatu is playing now only in theaters.
