Bloodsuckers

1928: Lyovuschka, a Soviet worker, is cast in the role of Trotsky for Eisenstein‘s latest film, but quickly finds his dreams of an actor‘s life shattered when Trotsky falls into Stalin‘s disfavor. Exiled from his homeland, he poses as a wealthy baron and finds himself stuck in a glamorous seaside resort in Germany awaiting a barge that will take him to Hollywood. A summer romance kicks off when he meets the eccentric factory owner Octavia Flambow-Jansen - it's just too bad there are vampires around.

If you are expecting Peter Cushing then think again; this is a much more obstruse analysis of just what vampyric might mean from the mouth of Karl Marx. Not for us, here, is gore, gothic and gruesome. This is more an opportunity for auteur Julian Radlmaier to concoct something altogether more provocatively humorous as we follow the adventures of "Ljowushka" (Aleksandre Koberidze). He's a poverty-stricken dreamer who is escaping the austerity of Stalin's Soviet state and making his way to Hollywood where he just knows stardom is going to beckon. He doesn't make it very far, though, as in Siren style of Homeric old, he is ensnared by the beauty of "Octavia" (Lilith Stangenberg) who likes her beaus, even those purporting to be barons, to have a little more bite to them - if you get my drift. Now safely ensconced at her country pile with only the enigmatic "Jakob" (Alexander Herbst) for company, what chances he will ever get his name up in lights? Of course, that isn't all we have here. The timelines intermingle between today and yesterday like some sort of hybrid of "Tales of the Unexpected" meets Ingmar Bergman, and the overall Marxist thrust of parasitic aristocrats praying on the toils - or in this case blood - of the plebs is writ large and sometimes quite entertainingly. As we flit between scenarios, we discuss the metaphorical and factual implications of his theory that the masses are but the fodder of the wealthy but we also look at the degree of fascination (and envy) felt by many of those masses - just ask "Jakob" - for those whom society has defined as superior. There is arrogance and complacency a-plenty here amongst the characters, but not always where you might expect it and it also has a sexual fluidity to it that adds quite mischievously to this evaluation of have and have nots - both financially and intellectually. For me, though, it darted about too often and Stangenberg and Koberidze didn't really convince with their chemistry. It's more like a cinematic chess game where all permutations are possible and many of them are played out, or explored, herein - but the satire is all too often subdued amidst the clutter and the overlapping timelines. This is, however, and engagingly creative piece of cinema that shows humanity and it's frequently underpinning philosophies warts and all, and though there is some sort of direction of travel for the plot, I am not sure we'd all need to sign up to it.