10 YEARS OF BYZANTIUM: LET’S TALK ABOUT CREATION
“In this work, at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relations with force, as swept away, blinded, by the very forces it imagined it could handle, as deformed by the weight of the force it submits to.”
Neil Jordan’s Byzantium premiered in 2012 — almost assuredly a labor of love, as most creative endeavors tend to be. I will be zipping in and around a variety of juicy creation metaphors, because it’s a film about vampires; a fleshy, blood-soaked genre at its best, but also because it is a film that should (nay must) be reconsidered in light of where we as a society now stand in matters concerning bodily autonomy. It is somewhat fortuitous that I would finally get my own creative shit together in the midst of such a horrific and momentous occasion, politically speaking. I’ve found myself harboring a conflicted feeling of gratitude for the men and women who have so recently decided what is or is not “settled.” Without them, we might not have our monsters. The argument could certainly be made that one of the only reasons they exist is because of them. Our violent, monstrous avatars, answering our despairing cries into the night with screeching cries of their own. It’s darkly funny that in the year of Byzantium’s 10th anniversary, we would have to face several very real, very eager threats to an unmolested, autonomous existence, but here we find ourselves. So, happy 10 years to Byzantium; unparalleled vampire film of my rapidly beating heart.
Directed by Neil Jordan (Interview with a Vampire) and written by Moira Buffini, Byzantium follows the lives of two vampires: Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and Clara (Gemma Arterton). Eleanor is introduced as a writer and the film’s narrator, in addition to being a particularly mild and lovely monster. Despite Clara’s youthful appearance and the fact that both women look to be similar in age, it’s revealed that she is in fact Eleanor’s mother and not her sister (their usual ruse). It’s apparent from the start that the two women are not prone to settling, nor are they living a particularly extravagant lifestyle; lacking for money and creature comforts.
Poor vampires are not something we’ve come to anticipate from the genre. They are almost universally wealthy, well-dressed, and self-important, which isn’t the turn-off it usually is in this specific instance. There’s something about vampires generally that responds to a decidedly human desire to be protected and well-cared for (whether this be by centuries of accumulated wealth or a seemingly endless supply of liquid sustenance), and while Clara certainly tries to provide this for Eleanor, it’s suggested that she has succeeded in terms of survival only, rather than that of a “rich” life. Their situation is instead strikingly working class; albeit melancholy, sensual, and often violent. In addition to establishing their physical transience, the narrative also betrays an emotional rift that has formed between the two, as well as a clear and present danger which Clara is not eager to share the details of. It is during their time spent in a small seaside town on the coast of England, a place that Eleanor suspects they’ve lived before, that the audience learns of their past and how they’ve come to return there.
The creature-feature element of this film is subtle but intriguing. Much of it should be familiar to most of us — immortality, the drinking of blood, the necessity of an invitation to enter the home of a living being. But what struck me as being most unique in this iteration was their genesis. While most vampire mythologies include the presence of a “maker” creating other vampires via sexy feeding-fest, Byzantium takes an entirely different tack. The only way to become a vampire in this story is to enter a cave on a remote island that only a chosen few are given the location of. When you enter this cave, you will be surprised to see that the creature inhabiting it is very familiar, as it would appear to be you. An eager, hungry reflection that feeds until your mortal form dies, only to be reborn into a stronger, immortal, and monstrous version of yourself. As the transformation occurs, the camera cuts suddenly to the running water surrounding the cave as it turns a deep, captivating red, and a flock of birds scream into the sky.
Up until the (re)creation of Clara, Byzantium establishes a cisgendered, biologically male vampiric collective. We only see three or four of them throughout the film, and they are undoubtedly the villains of the story; a truth that Eleanor only learns as the film concludes. For all their unapologetic authority, the vampires seem almost zealously committed to one particular tenet: That women are not permitted to create. This was probably the crucial narrative detail that has needled me the most over the years. The authoritative tone dangling in front of me like bait on a hook — too easy, but delicious nonetheless, and it felt as if I had wandered into a trap that was built especially for me — my own mysterious isle, home to my own ravenous reflection. Gender is so much a part of this film, and yet in some ways not at all, as we are invited to create ourselves; to turn into magnificent, powerful immortals, only to return to a world that persists in its efforts to value human life in only the most mundane, economical of ways. The vampiric patriarchal leadership is the central reason why Clara doesn’t allow them to settle anywhere for very long. At the start of the movie we see an attempt to capture Clara by one of the male vampiric authorities, but she refuses to tell Eleanor the truth of the matter, and so Eleanor’s overarching story (that she’s apparently retold in writing, over and over again) suffers from some pretty glaring omissions.
And for those of us called daughters who have relationships with their mothers, this isn’t all that surprising. I’ve had many frustrated conversations with friends about details that our mothers, for whatever reason, refuse to share with us, but which would likely offer some sort of resonance to ourselves and our relationships with them. And what’s even more heartbreaking is that the film doesn’t even try to convince us that Clara is a bad mother — quite the opposite. Clara is a mother who has suffered for lack of any reasonable choices. A mother who felt forced to turn her daughter into a literal monster rather than watch her suffer as she had.
There’s been a lot written on the power of creation — on who is privileged to create and who (or what) is created. The film espouses a long-argued belief that harmful patriarchal attitudes are due in part to a fear or jealousy experienced by those who cannot “create” (i.e., those people who have the biological ability to do so). What I love about Byzantium is that there are multiple creation narratives at work, almost none of them occurring in a manner which we’ve come to expect. Almost universally, fatherhood as it is traditionally understood becomes irrelevant in the face of vampirism. The only thing Byzantium requires is will. When I rewatched the movie recently, I asked my husband whether or not Johnny Lee Miller’s character, the abhorrent Ruthven, was supposed to be Eleanor’s biological father.
However, I came to the conclusion that the film itself doesn’t seem concerned with this question. It would be normal for the audience to ask it, especially considering his attack on Eleanor later in the film, but if we are concerned with who the father might be based on how it impacts biological provenance only, it is entirely irrelevant. It is irrelevant in the face of monstrous creation, which calls only for a map and the willpower to follow it where it leads. The all-male vampiric elite claim that the transformation renders human beings soulless, but it’s fair to say that this is very much up for debate. Does the lack of a soul feel like a more substantive excuse for what they insist they must do? And how does this compare with Clara’s supposed “sins” as a being forced into motherhood? These men believe they exist in perpetuity to “administer justice,” which is laughable in the face of Clara’s considerably horrific journey — wherein she is “turned” by a so-called honorable man (Ruthven) into a sex-worker without her consent. It won’t surprise certain viewers that this is the man who is initially chosen to become a vampire. He is white, a man of wealth, and so he seems the obvious choice. Clara, who at this point is dying from some unknown disease, likely infected due to her profession, happens to overhear the offer, and very quickly decides that she has no other choice. She decides to reclaim her life by stealing the location to the cave, ultimately being reborn into her new life with abandon — standing beneath the bloody falls with ecstatic joy.
Byzantium approaches sexuality in a manner unfamiliar to most staples of the genre in that it rings a dark, uncomfortable bell that is never truly unrung. Even in the consensual encounters, it’s hard to forget the trauma that the characters have already experienced, and which has clearly followed them through the centuries. The power they gain; the immortality and monstrousness, does not negate what happened to them. It’s also extremely fair to say that Clara is obviously oozing sex appeal, and she is engaged in sexual behavior throughout the film, which isn’t uncommon for the vampiric genre, but it’s not quite so enthusiastic as we might be used to seeing. Clara’s entire relationship with intimacy in this film is rooted in survival; pleasure has very little to do with it, and the most we see her behaving in a sincerely pleasurable way is when she’s feeding or immediately after her transformation. In fact, creation and sexuality have very little to do with one another in this film, which I don’t hate given the especially traumatic nature of physical intimacy throughout.
The film culminates in Eleanor’s knowledge of the truth — both of the reality of their circumstances, as well as her mother’s motivations. It ends in her freedom from their stagnant narrative, and the birth of a new one. Secrets — particularly those that stem from our traumatic circumstances, and/or as victims of the hegemonic forces that have predetermined our “wrongness” are shown to be a mistake, no matter how well-meaning, as in Clara’s case. Clara’s reasoning is not without merit, but it ultimately hurts only herself and her daughter. By hiding the truth of their circumstances; their creation; and Clara’s history, there is an inability to fully embrace themselves and their relationship with each other. Eleanor’s decision to embrace vampirism by the end of this film is a surprising one. For most of the movie it seems as if she feels a sense of shame at what she is (a feeling undeniably stemming from her sexual assault as well as her necessity to feed on the blood of human beings), but in the final scene she leads another into the cave to face the same monster she has struggled for centuries to accept. Perhaps it is because she has realized that there is more than one kind of monster — worse than what she had believed herself to be through no fault of her own.
Being able to confront the truth of one’s own creation — no matter how disconcerting, is vital to understanding ourselves and how we exist in the world with others. Vampires have long been used as our mirrors, and Byzantium is no different. 10 years have passed since the film was released, but as I hope I’ve made abundantly clear, it has become even more prescient than it had been at the time of its release. Byzantium portrays women with a complexity that I often wish I could see more of — as powerful and vulnerable all at once. I take immense pleasure in seeing their viciousness as much as I can relate to their fear or sadness. And do I sometimes wish that our monsters could walk alongside us in a literal sense, as opposed to a metaphorical one? Certainly. I think I might feel just a little less afraid. But then what do we do if our monsters can feel fear just as well as we can? Byzantium is a movie about monsters, but they are not the most frightening among us.
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