Byzantium is a British-Irish fantasy thriller film directed by Neil Jordan and starring Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton and Jonny Lee Miller. The story concerns a mother/daughter vampire duo. This is the second foray by Jordan into the world of the undead, following his Oscar-nominated Interview with the Vampire, in 1994.
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Synopsis
Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are a rampant mother-and-daughter duo of 200-year-old vampires, wreaking mayhem in the run-down quarters of an English seaside town.
Eleanor yearns to be a writer, constantly recording gothic elements of her turbulent life. Despite her self-effacing demeanour, Jordan chooses to dress her in a coat with a broad crimson hood, a possible back-reference to the hooded dwarf in Nicholas Roeg's 1973 classic thriller set in Venice Don't Look Now.
When Eleanor falls for the anaemic-looking Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), it seems that her secret may be revealed. Meanwhile, Mother Clara has moved in with no-hoper Noel (Daniel Mays), who has inherited a derelict seafront hotel - the Byzantium of the film's title - which she proceeds to convert into a bordello. Another neat cinematic 'hat-tipping' gesture by Jordan is the hotel's antique lift car: a reference to the Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, chosen by Ridley Scott as the home of the cyber designer and mechanical toy freak J.F.Sebastian, in the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner.
When she is not supping on the blood of her post-coital clients, Clara is battling kung-fu style with two fearsome heavies from The Brotherhood, culminating in a gripping blood-drenched finale played out in a deserted fairground arcade.
Director
Neil Jordan
Producer
Sam Englebardt
Cast
* Saoirse Ronan
* Gemma Arterton
* Sam Riley
* Jonny Lee Miller
* Tom Hollander
* Daniel Mays
* Caleb Landry Jones
* Maria Doyle Kennedy
Trailer
Wiki
Imdb