Despite the film's depiction of Báthory as a monstrous figure, it also portrays her as a tragic one, as she is shown to be deeply unhappy and unfulfilled in her personal life. The film suggests that her cruelty and depravity are the result of her own personal demons and insecurities, rather than a result of any inherent evil.
The subplots with the Italian painter and the two spy-monks are quite unnecessary and ridiculous. I'm saying this as a Slovak-American, someone married to a Romanian, and who lived in Romania for five years. Over the years, many have suggested that the Countess was actually the victim of a framing. This movie could have been so good. It moves at a slow and steady pace. Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary is perhaps the most prolific female serial killer of all time. BATHORY, a would-be epic with nice period detail, aspires to myth-buster status by painting the "Bloody Countess of Čachtice" as a victim of political chicanery in a male-dominated society but all it accomplishes is a "legend" of its own by white-washing history, facts be damned.
It is so hard to see a good historical movie nowadays and this movie is the perfect example. Don't waste your time with it, don't be lulled into thinking that with a European director and Anna Friel it couldn't really be that bad. With many of those around Erzsebet suspicious of her mysterious ability to remain youthful and beautiful, Palatine Thurzo propogates rumors that Erzsebet is murdering innocent women as part of a method to maintain her beauty. The great thing about this film is it's unique style, which has great flair, very like the best of Ken Russell. Although the finest art direction, the film is fake in many ways and the rhythm is unstable. The story has so so much potential, to make a good film of it, but they really ruined it. Eventually Erzsebet's husband dies and she rises to a position of great political influence in Hungary, owning a substantial amount of land, money and other property.
Retrieved 2 June 2013. Many reviews here find the monks' humor out of place, inappropriate, or they just didn't see the purpose of it. They went to great length and expense in this aspect reminding me of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon. I saw the need for exposition, but it could have been done in a myriad of more appropriate ways, and the comic aspects were so completely out of place here it killed any mood the film created. And then there's the rollerblading monks! Retrieved 9 July 2014.
Erzsebet later goes on to befriend a woman rumored to have great healing powers, Darvulia Deana Jakubiskova. Retrieved 3 May 2008. I gave it 3 stars just for the beauty of the landscape , Carpathian mountains notably,otherwise it,s just a pure waste of time. . Redbox got rights to this 2008 reject from Czech TV, and melted it down into a 3 hour movie that they tried to pass off with a horror sub-title, "Countess of Blood". That's basically the point of the movie! Friel, but regularly sabotaged it. The battle of Esztergom the city is Hungary's first and main archdiocesan centre , one of the 12 most important battles against Turkish occupation, is fought in this film among a dozen tents.
In some moments she seems to be sadistic and in other moments she seems to be very pure. . And gender feminists refer to the likes of Homolka and others as "classic examples of female victims of male sadism. . Retrieved 2 June 2013.
10 Bloody Movies Based on the Countess Elizabeth Báthory
It was produced by Ethos Performance Troupe in association with the VORTEX Repertory Company in Austin, Texas. This was, after all, the era of John Ruskin, "separate spheres," and the notion of woman as civilizing influence. Yes, the old standby, folks: when you want to make excuses for evil women, just portray them as nurturing and self-sacrificing, willingly shouldering the burden of undeserved ignominy for the sake of their children. But then again, why he confuses us for a better part of the movie making us think that the heroine is just as spoiled as the Guinness Book of World Records claims? Director Juraj Jakubisko leans into the absurdity of the Báthory story, including strange, hallucinatory sequences. I'm sure it also seemed complex or confusing if you are not familiar with the inner struggles and politics of the Hungarians, Slovaks, and Romanians at that time. It's a shame she could not alter the stupidity of the whole movie. Frankly a ridiculous quibble, one does not notice anything but how fine the performances truly are.
