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The type of life I long for

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Perhaps I had been prepared for the body horror element, what disturbed me the most was the food horror: just some of the most unappetising food styling I've seen on film, plus the nauseating sound effect of ingesting and making said food. I would go as far as calling it a diet-friendly film. 

On a more serious note, the first half of the film really had me gripped. Fargeat is evidently a skilled visual story-teller, shoutout to the opening section of Elisabeth's rise and fall. If I remember correctly, the last shot of Elisabeth's ketchup-stained, Walk of Fame star in the opening section was mirrored in the final shot. How Elisabeth's flat is shaped like a circle is also a lovely touch, a snake eating its tail, perhaps? 

What didn't quite work for me was the third act. Although I am fond of the final shot, halfway through the film we could already see how it was going to end. For me, I think we could have got there sooner, and cut to black at the mirror scene. I would also appreciate a quick shot of drop box 207 as Elisabeth went to collect her last supply, to demonstrate the inevitability. I appreciate the director was aiming for how the audience/consumers were all complicit and should be marked thus. Also would have liked a bit more complexity and inner struggle with Sue, who's clearly aware of her origin. Overall, still enjoyed it and will be keeping an eye on the director's career for sure.

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Gothic Yohji Yamamoto: Vampire Fang Sterling Silver Ring (2021)

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Interview with the Vampire, 1.01

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ASSAD ZAMAN as Armand

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2024) 2.03 – No Pain

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Kept thinking why this look in particular felt familiar...

Two iconic gay blond(e)s.

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lestat when louis stops paying attention to him for two whole seconds

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Interview With The Vampire Part II [2024] 🧛🏼‍♀️favorite moments Louis in NOLA

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A quick snap of the Jon magazine that came through my mail box today. The interview itself isn't all that insightful. I'll put some interesting bits behind the cut for length.

Leigh (interviewer): Is it a bit of a relief when you walk away on that last day and you get to leave Louis behind?

Jacob: It is. But then I'm missing him immediately. Like, it's funny. At the end of season, the last day we were shooting something, a scene where Louis is just so tired. He's just reached this point where he has nothing left in him. Right? And this was at the end of six months of nights. We did 100 nights and I was working every single one of them. So it was great to do a scene where I had to be as tired as I was. But then we wrapped...and it sounds so dramatic, but the first thing I did was literally fall to my knees, lay down flat, face down in the middle of the street and just had a cry.

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Leigh: We should campaign for that. We need a political party that advocates a 3.5 day work week.

Jacob: I'm down for that. Like I found great purpose and great joy in playing Louis and enjoyed being there every day. I only had a few days off in season two, and I don't know ow much my partner loved that...It was a lot for my family.

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Leigh: Well, I have got just two fun questions for you - our issue theme is FAB. So I wanted to ask you about two things that are FAB in your life - what's your most fabulous pair of shoes? And what's the most fabulous dish you cook?

Jacob: Okay, I'm going to say the most fabulous dish I can cook is a brown stew chicken. [...] It's a Jamaican dish. You do it with rice and peas and it's basically like a stew where you cook it for like, four, five, six, seven hours. You cook it for as long as you want, basically. And the longer you cook it, the more the meat just falls off the bone. The reason I think it's FAB is because there's such a freedom to making it, you can do it with real flair and eccentricity.

Leigh: Really FAB. What's the basis of the sauce? What's the brown?

Jacob: This thing called 'all purpose seasoning', which is very common in Jamaican cooking. It's beautiful. It's quite hard to describe it, but it's a little bit sweet. It's very salty, and has a tomato flavour.

Leigh: And then your favourite shoes. Most FAB shoes?

Jacob: I did like a recent cull of shoes because I realised I had too many shoes [laughs]. I got some Clarks recently that are really beautiful. They're like, kind of a high, chunky feel.

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Set design by Alan E. Schwanke

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Thanks to Lestat's mention of Argerich in the finale, I finally found the piece of music that was used during the reading of Lestat's letter to Louis in Paris, and was again played in NOLA. Sharing it in case anyone else is interested.

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'"For you see,' I (Louis) said to her in that same calm voice, 'what died in this room was not that woman. [...] What has died in this room tonight is the last vestige in me of what was human.'"

I see this scene as a lovely interpretation of what's in the book. Louis described wanting to remove the blood from within him flatly. Was it Madeleine's blood he was trying to rid of? Was it vampiric blood? Beneath the numbness there was a deep sorrow. A desire to claw back some of his humanity. Even when he'd rationalised with himself that he was bringing one into The Blood in a good way.

What has always fascinated me about show!Louis is this mismatch between what he says and what he does. We have yet to meet the real Lestat. I'd say we've only seen the real Louis in glimpses, often via his actions. Lestat said it well in the pilot episode: Louis has always performed different roles to different people because of his race and sexuality. In season 2, Claudia asks the same question: who are you outside of your relationships? Louis was lost beneath his many hats in 1910s. He was a traumatised man who had no way of processing what he'd done in the 1940s, grasping even harder at any (illusion of) power. Since episode 3, he's been projecting calm/control, falling back to callousness at times.

This might also have been another moment of genuine connection between Louis and Armand. Louis turned Madeleine and thus let go of Claudia. Armand showed up, essentially 'chose him' and healed him. I think Louis was touched by it. We don't see any of his overt affections and casualness on display here. Dubai Louis recalled Armand standing in his blood and touching his hair. This moment has stayed with Louis down to a small piece of sense memory. I don't think it's coincidence that when the dust settled, Madeleine pointed out that Louis loved Armand. Well, for whatever definition of love either of these two was capable of.

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Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938)

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There is something interesting that Louis recalled Armand's first words to him, whereas Armand recalled Louis' first words to the coven. It's possible that Louis didn't say anything during their first meeting. It's possible that Armand was steeling himself to remove Louis as a threat. But Armand also referred to Magnus as his deserter, when Magnus was only remotely connected to the Paris coven in the sense that he stole the Blood from a coven member, before Armand was sent to govern it. Of course this is book canon so it may or may not apply to the show. My reading is that at this point in time, Armand's sense of self has always been tied to an external group: the monks and icons in his native land, the brothels, Marius', eh, school of love, the coven. He hasn't found himself either, more so than Louis.

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Re-watching ep 3. Noticed perhaps a gift that's so far, unique to Armand: the power to control anything related to electricity. When Louis and Armand had their meet cute in the park, the lamplight flickered when Armand approached and when he departed. Here, the camera deliberately shows us this line was not recorded, but the next line was. Is this how they echo Armand has always had a really strong Mind Gift?

Putting another speculation under the cut re The Talamasca.

The Talamasca is obviously keeping a very close eye on the interview. And they know the whereabouts of Daniel's laptop. My (totally unfounded) guess is that Real Rashid TM is an undercover agent. Out of the entire staff, he is the one who has the access to the most sensitive material and information, e.g. the removed pages of Claudia's diaries. He is the one most likely gaining access to Daniel's personal belongings. Real Rashid, you better have an exit plan in place. Neither of those vampires are the forgiving kind...