2024 was the year movies reached their sweet spot again, but I didn't always have a taste for the usual rom-coms and action-packed films I'm known to watch. I wanted to see romantasy and gothic features that held hidden messages in their plots. Specifically, I yearned for a vampire tale that made me question life after devouring Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma — and I found it in Robert Eggers' Nosferatu.
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Lily Rose-Depp, Nicholas Hoult, William Dafoe, and Aaron-Tayor Johnson, it's one of the most terrifying and enchanting vampiric films I've seen in a long time. And yet, I have so many questions about it.
P.S. This DEFINITELY contains spoilers.
Scroll to see the 10 burning questions I have after watching Nosferatu!
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1. What did all those lilacs mean?
One of the first things I noticed in Nosferatu are the obvious and subtle nods to lilac flowers. They're first seen in bouquet form when Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) happily brings them to his wife Ellen Hutter (Lily Rose-Depp). However, she's not happy about the gift, claiming they'll die. Her reaction and statement kept gnawing at me long after Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) smells a piece of hair in the locket she gave to Thomas.
Apparently, lilacs are a symbol of life — but also death — in literature. Walt Whitman best exemplified this through his poem When Lilacs Last In Door Yard Bloom'd, intrinsically linking the sweet smell of lilacs to the passing of Abraham Lincoln. So when Ellen freaked out about the bouquet being a "waste," was that just another reminder of the death and decay from her dream? Another reminder of her oath to Orlok? Is Ellen just a "picked" flower herself, bound to the vase that is her promise to Orlok?
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2. Did Thomas Hutter sense something odd while in Herr Knock's office?
My favorite part about movies is watching characters' faces during conversations. Although it's not implied Thomas Hutter has otherworldly abilities, I wondered if felt something was wrong with Herr Knock's enthusiasm about securing property for Count Orlok.
Nicholas Hoult did a great job of showing subtle signs of confusion, apprehension and fear during the film so this stood out while he was in Herr Knock's office.
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3. Could Ellen see Count Orlok waiting for Thomas before he left?
This seems like a silly question if you've watched Nosferatu, but the film didn't explicitly say whether Ellen could see him or not. Based on her fear about Thomas leaving to secure a stable financial future for them, I think it's possible Ellen had a deeper connection to Orlok than we originally thought.
Also, her dreams and nightmares seemed to get worse once Thomas left, indicating Orlok knew he could torment her even further since she was no longer under the watchful eye of her husband.
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4. Did Thomas pass out after that Romanian vampire ritual?
As a viewer, it was clear the Romanians were staunchly against vampires, given how they were vehemently against his visit to Orlok immediately. Then, that night, Thomas happened upon some kind of ritual (or execution) of a vampire after exhuming it from a grave — only for Thomas to quickly wake up in his bed as if it was nothing more than a bad dream. Was it real, or just some kind of illusion? The mud on his boots say a lot to me, TBH.
But why would the Romanians not want him to believe it was real? Weren't they trying to prove to him how dangerous vampires (and Orlok) are? My guess is Orlok had something to do with the confusion.
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4. What was Ellen gifted with?
I love the Insidious franchise, so I've become familiar with the concept of astral projecting in films. I didn't expect to see something similar in Nosferatu though. It became clear that Ellen is gifted, but I wonder how many abilities she has for a few reasons.
- Ellen explained to Professor Von Franz that she's always had the ability to 'know' things before they happen (i.e. her mother's death), indicating some type of psychic powers.
- Her prayers for comfort by any celestial being during her time of loneliness were answered by something demonic — Orlok (AKA Nosferatu).
- She always went into a trance at the same time of night — and even demonstrated an ability to speak on behalf of Orlok at one point.
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5. Did Friedrich and Anna Harding's perspectives represent society's ability to ignore what can't be explained?
Let's have a moment of silence for Friedrich and Anna Harding. They were the unsuspecting friends of the Hutters who met their untimely (read: unfair) demise towards the end of Nosferatu. I didn't get the feeling they were bad people, but it seems like they were content living in a safe bubble where unexplained things were acts of God — or even nonexistent — in their eyes.
Does this mean they were supposed to represent society's ability to do the same whenever traumatic things occur? Whenever something challenges the safety of societal constructs that are have in place? And did their deaths portray the consequences of turning a blind eye to the world around you? I hate what happened to them, but Ellen really did try to warn everyone...
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7. What did Professor Von Franz and Ellen's cats symbolize?
Cats were another element that stood out in Nosferatu. We first saw Ellen's cat Greta before Thomas Hutter received his grisly job assignment, and then later see a few living with Professor Von Franz. Though he was dubbed 'eccentric,' we later realize he's more aware of what's happening in Wisburg than 'regular' people as he's able to understand what's afflicting Ellen.
His immediate notice of Greta while evaluating Ellen made me wonder if the cats in Nosferatu were meant to symbolize familiars or protectors against evil. According to PBS, Medieval Europeans weren't too fond of cats, reporting that cats were often associated with the Devil and witches. The Guardianeven reported that while keeping domestic pets was on the rise in 19th century Europe (AKA the setting of Nosferatu), cats still weren't as liked — and often mainly seen as a means of hunting mice. They wrote, "As a result, cats weren’t as well-fed as other pets and developed a reputation for being sly and calculating."
With all that in mind, does the cat symbolize Ellen's gentle nature, seeking to comfort the less comforted? Does it symbolize her borderline witchy nature? And what do Professor Von Franz's many, many cats mean? (Seriously, someone please tell me what it means!)
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8. Did a part of Ellen welcome Orlok's demonic presence?
This is one of the more controversial questions I have because of something Professor Von Franz told Ellen before the end of Nosferatu. He told her that we sometimes have to embrace the darkness within in order to stop external forces which leads me to wonder if that's what Ellen did.
I'm not implying that she liked or loved Orlok by any means because he's truly a demonic parasite. However, what if she decided to make peace with the shadow part of her soul in order to fulfill her destiny of saving others?
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9. Did Ellen know she'd have to sacrifice herself?
Even though Ellen embraced the parts of herself she felt shamed by for a greater purpose, I've been thinking about the dark wedding dream she recounted to Thomas. She said she saw herself willingly marrying death and never felt happier despite how much death surrounded them.
Seeing that Orlok brought the plague to Wisburg that quickly started consuming the town, did Ellen know her fate would always lie with accepting whatever involved him?
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10. Did Nosferatu shed light on the 1800s purity culture?
Lastly, did Nosferatu represent impurity and sexuality for women during the 1800s? Given that women are still held to a higher sexual standard, I can imagine the 1800s were a hot bed of making sure women were as pure as possible to be considered worthy brides and mothers.
Still, did Nosferatu imply that Anna was supposed to be a pillar of 'perfection' in this sense while Ellen's 'shame' and tormented soul called into question how pure she was? After all, she relayed how upset her father was to find her unclothed in the garden when she recounted how she "met" Orlok to begin with. Is this all really just a metaphor for the suffocating shame women face when considered "impure"?
Nosferatu is available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV now!
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