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| Monica Demes |
DEoL: How did you
arrive at the subject matter for the film?
MD: Through
Transcendental Meditation (TM). I used it to dive into my unconsciousness and
came up with one of the scenes - the one where Art meets the mysterious woman
on the dark road. After I came to that scene through intuition, I asked my
intellect - why did I write that scene? What does it mean? And I came to the
conclusion - I wrote that scene ‘cause I was tired of seeing women raped in
films, especially in horror. In those kind of films they are usually portrayed
as victims. So I said, what if it’s reversed? What if something really bad happens
with the rapist instead? That was the seed of the entire screenplay.
DEoL: The film includes
lots of references to Dracula in character names. Was this a gentle homage or
were you saying something more serious about that text in the context of the
film?
MD: I used the
line - “what if…” meaning - what if instead of a prince of the darkness, that
seduces Lucy and takes her away from her beloved Jonathan and society - it is a
woman in his place, a princess of darkness?
What if …that princess lives inside Lucy’s head? In her dreams? What if she was
Lucy’s shadow, her hidden part? Vampire tales are all about sexual repression.
DEoL: How much should
this be read as a feminist film? The women are strong and the men are, well,
deadbeats (which I know isn't a definition of feminism, but...)?
MD: On one hand
we have a controller father, a passionate lover (the pretty bad boy Art) and
the loving husband, Jonathan (he cares about her in his own way) - on the other
hand, we have Lucy - an oppressed woman who works in a gas station (symbol of
man’s land) who is unhappy in her marriage and who will never grow under the
shadow of the father. We see in one scene that she is afraid to go to the
woods. The woods that represent the unknown, the lack of protection and the
wild. She knows if she goes there, her world might never be the same. It’s a very
symbolic film. And what does Lucy finds in those woods? Nothing but her own
self. Her dark side, her hidden part. And the more she connects with what she
tries to hide, the stranger she gets. She will feel alive again as much as she
embraces her dark side and experiences her true self. The film is all about
connection with the shadow. And it’s not
that men are deadbeats. In the film. Jonathan wants a wife that will support
him and love him, help him get a better job by having a social life with his
boss, and have a kid. But the film is perceived from Lucy’s perspective and she
can’t connect with him. She can’t love him because he can’t make her happy, and
never will. I guess she is more into biting beautiful necks at night, than
raising a family, that’s all. And I would say even more... deep inside of her,
she has always been different. Different from what surrounds her. Different
from what’s expected from her. Different from everything she knows in that
small town. The vampire in this film is used as a metaphor.
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| Demes with mentor David Lynch |
MD: No, I went
with an empty mind and wanted to feel the energy of the place to write there.
It was a cold place with huge distances, puritan and conservative and people
didn’t talk much or connect - with that landscape I knew I had to build a
vampiric story. The MFA was important because it was the first time I was using
TM in my creative process. And David (Lynch) gave me great feedback when I was
having a repetitive problem with the screenplay. He went right into the grain,
and opened my eyes towards the process of storytelling, on how our brain
functions as an antenna - perceiving the ideas that surround us and
transforming it into images that will shape the story.
DEoL: And finally, what
do you think about the finished film? Equally importantly, what feedback have
you had from David?
MD: I love the
film, hahaha. But I am subjective. About David, he didn’t see the film yet, but
I hope he does shortly.
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