Day of the Siege: What is it Trying to Say?

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17th Century Europe, Day of the Siege, Early Modern Europe, Enrico Lo Verso, F. Murray Abraham, Islam, Ottoman Empire, Religious Issues, Renzo Martinelli

The full title of Day of the Siege: September Eleven, 1683 (aka September Eleven, 1683, 2012, dir. Renzo Martinelli) immediately makes one think of September 11^th, 2001. Clearly Renzo Martinelli was trying to draw some sort of parallel between the battle of Vienna and the September 11^th attacks. But what is the message?

The basis for the parallel comes from the common misconception that the battle of Vienna happened on September 11^th, 1683. It didn’t. It happened on September 12^th. But if you poke around the Internet, you’ll find a lot of websites dating the battle to the 11^th. So was Martinelli simply misinformed, or was he willfully overlooking the issue of dating to make a point?

 

Within the Film

Martinelli opens the film with a quote from the esteemed French medieval historian Marc Bloch. “Misunderstanding of the present grows fatally from the ignorance of the past.” So Martinelli is quite clearly including the quote to make the audience aware that we’re supposed to learn a lesson, and that ignoring the Battle of Vienna would be a mistake. There is no connection whatsoever between Bloch’s specific subject matter (he was a social historian who focused on medieval France) and the 17^th century or Islamic history. But Bloch was part of the French resistance during World War II. He was captured and executed shortly after D-Day in 1944. Is Martinelli trying to make a parallel between the Nazis who executed Bloch and the Turks? As we’ll see, I suspect the answer is yes.

Any casual viewer of the film will, I think, come to the conclusion that Marco d’Aviano (F. Murray Abraham) and Kara Mustafa (Enrico Lo Verso) are the main characters; the film spends roughly equal time on both characters, although it digs into d’Aviano somewhat more deeply. But apparently, Martinelli did not see Mustafa as one of the main characters. Immediately after the Bloch quote, Martinelli gives us a prologue text. “On September 11^th, 1683, Islam was at the peak of it’s [sic] expansion in the West. Three hundred thousand Islamic troopers under the command of Kara Mustafa, were besieging the city they called “the Golden Apple”; Vienna. The aim of Kara Mustafa was to lead his army on to Rome, and transform the Basilica of Saint Peter into a Mosque. If all of this never came about, it’s due to an Italian monk, Marco Da Aviano and a Polish King, Jan Sobieski. This is their story.”

Mustafa, looking very Turkish

Aside from the spelling and punctuation errors, which are presumably an issue of translation from the Italian, this prologue is very odd, because it claims that the film tells Jan Sobieski’s (Jerzy Skolimowski) story, which it doesn’t Sobieski is a supporting character who appears relatively late in the film and get no character development whatsoever, apart from his struggle to get his troops up a hill, and he get much less screen time than Mustafa.

So despite Mustafa being one of the protagonists, Martinelli discourages the audience focusing on him as a main character and instead directs attention toward Sobieski. So the film is pretty much explicitly telling us to sympathize with the Western Catholic position rather than the Turkish Muslim position. Whatever Martinelli’s message is, it’s intended for the West, not Muslims.

Note the absence of Mustafa in favor of two supporting Western characters

Religion understandably plays a major role in the film. Several of the characters debate or discuss the contrast between Christianity and Islam. D’Aviano debates the issue with Abu’l, Abu’l twice makes statements to his deaf-mute wife about the issue, and d’Aviano and Mustafa debate the issue during a parley. D’Aviano asserts that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God; that’s a controversial assertion today, but in terms of 17^th century Catholic theology, it’s an accurate representation of what d’Aviano would have thought. In his debate with Mustafa, he insists that “The true god has no use for submission. He wants all men to be free, to worship him freely.” It’s nice to see a film actually define the freedom its characters are striving for (in this case the freedom to worship or not), but it’s a comparison that positions Islam as a religion of slavery. Again that might be a view that the historical d’Avaino would have agreed with, but it was Martinelli’s decision to include the line in the film.

Abu’l’s statements to his wife fit with d’Aviano’s statement. When he decides to leave Italy and his wife to support the Turkish campaign, he tells her that the difference between Christianity and Islam is that Christians put their hearts ahead of their faith, while Muslims do the opposite. Later, when he risks himself to rescue his wife from a stockade of captive women, he tells her, “At times, faith alone is not enough, even for us Muslims.” So at that point he appears to be repudiating the notion that Muslims put faith first. But then at the end of the film, for no clear reason, he disguises himself as Mustafa and charges the Hussars, who cut him down with gunfire. Since the film gives him no reason to be personally loyal to Mustafa, the viewer is left to assume that he is doing it for religious reasons. Thus, his actions deny the growth he has shown his wife and affirm that Muslims cannot change or grow on any issue involving their faith. Martinelli clearly views Islam as a sort of totalitarian religion, glossing over the way that Leopold I historically worked to suppress Protestantism in Hungary. Apparently, when Catholics are religiously intolerant, it’s not worth talking about.

The film opens with d’Aviano giving a sermon to a group of peasants about trusting God to grant them the strength to defend their homes. He also insists that he cannot work miracles, contrary to his reputation. A blind member of the audience promptly gets a miracle that cures his blindness. Later in the film, d’Aviano heals one of Leopold I’s daughters of what looks to be highly advanced breast cancer. So d’Aviano is a humble miracle-worker. In contrast, Mustafa is given a portent that the invasion will go badly, but he arrogantly misunderstands it and is rewarded with defeat and his own execution. So the film seems to be suggesting that God is on the West’s side, granting d’Aviano and those who trust him miracles. I don’t think there’s any doubt here that Martinelli is pro-Catholic.

D’Aviano, looking very friarish

Martinelli’s Statements

Martinelli has offered some guidance to his intentions in various statements made to the press. (All translations made with the help of Google Translate, since I do not read either Italian or Rumanian. Thus it is possible that I may have missed some nuance to his statements.) Well before the film was made, he said, “The origin of the deep anger which the West is forced to confront today was born September 11^th, 1683.”

When a Romanian journalist asked him if he expected the Vatican to support the film, he responded, “No…In recent speeches, [Pope Benedict] said to open our hearts to Islam and I’m not sure that would be the best thing we can do with these guys….Today [the Church] preaches tolerance, and my film is politically incorrect. There is a priest who says ‘there is a time for prayer and another for war.’ If you do not fight now, Europe will be lost.”

From these quotes, it seems that Martinelli believes that the Islamic world is angry at the West because of Mustafa’s failure to conquer Europe, and that this anger is the root for the September 11^th attacks in 2001. He seems to feel that religious tolerance of Muslims is a bad idea, because if the West trusts Muslims, they will have an easier time launching another attack.

Renzo Martinelli

When d’Aviano parleys with Mustafa, Mustafa tells him that even if the Turks are defeated, such a loss would only be “trimming the Prophet’s beard,” in other words, a momentary defeat that the Turks will recover from.

So the lesson that Martinelli wants his viewers to learn is evidently that the West has forgotten what happened at Vienna in 1683. In 1683, the West stood united against Islam and stopped an unprovoked invasion. But the West forgot to remain vigilant, and the result was the catastrophe of 9-11. He is urging us to once again be on our guard, to reject religious tolerance as too dangerous, and to remember that Muslims cannot change their ways and therefore can never be trusted.

I applaud Martinelli for seeking to use a historical film to get his audience to think about issues he is concerned with. Far too often, historical conflicts are just an excuse for another over-the-top action film. But Martinelli’s Islamophobia, which comes out in some of his interviews, is appalling, and his attempts to get attention for his film by explicitly linking it to 9-11 is downright offensive. He overlooks the fact that after the end of the Great Turkish War in 1699, Western powers embarked on a 200 year long project to dismember the Ottoman Empire, slowly taking territory from it in one trumped up war after another. The break-up of the Ottoman state and the arrogance with which Western powers, especially Britain and France, redrew the map of the Middle East after World War I plays a major role in the turbulence in the region today and certainly contributes to the hostility many Muslims feel toward the West. By omitting the three centuries between 1683 and 2001, Martinelli is offering a simplistic and historically vacuous argument about what caused the 9-11 attacks.

Given that the film is wrong-headed, offensive, not particularly good, and painfully low-budget in places, the best thing to do with Day of the Siege is let it fall into the obscurity it deserves.

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Day of the Siege: Meh

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17th Century Europe, Day of the Siege, Early Modern Europe, Enrico Lo Verso, F. Murray Abraham, Holy Roman Empire, Jerzy Skolomowski, Kara Mustafa, Marco d'Aviano, Military Stuff, Ottoman Empire, The Battle of Vienna, Vienna

Day of the Siege: September Eleven, 1683 (aka September Eleven, 1683, 2012, dir. Renzo Martinelli) is a joint Italian-Polish film about the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683. It’s notable chiefly for not being especially good or bad, and tackling an important but poorly-known historical event. It reminded me a lot of eggplant; after I was done, I thought, “I could have had something else.” So let’s (reluctantly) dig in.

 

The Battle of Vienna

The Ottoman Empire conquered the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and by the early 16^th century the attention of the Ottoman Sultans had turned to expanding up into the Balkans. In 1529, the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna, but was unable to take the city, and heavy snowfall turned the Ottoman withdrawal into a serious disaster. This failure brought an end to Ottoman expansion into Europe for 150 years.

In the middle of the 18^th century, the reign of Sultan Mehmet IV (1642-93) marked a significant turning point in Ottoman fortunes. He surrendered a great deal of his political power to his Grand Viziers, inaugurating a gradual decline in the power of the sultan. Initially, the Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed proved a successful military leader, defeating Venice, re-affirming Ottoman power over Transylvania after a brief war with Austria, and waging a successful campaign against Poland.

But a later Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, proved less effective in the office. In 1681, Hungarian Protestants rebelled against the Austrian Emperor Leopold I’s efforts to impose Catholicism throughout Hungary, and Mustafa decided to support the rebellion in the hopes of being able to break Hungary away from Austria and eventually absorb it into the Ottoman state. He was able to persuade Mehmed IV’s Divan (essentially, the Ottoman Cabinet) to authorize military action, and in August of 1682, the Ottomans declared war on Austria.

Kara Mustafa

But the timing of this declaration of war was remarkably bad. It was impossible to get Ottoman troops into Austrian territory before the onset of winter, and the result was that Leopold had the entire winter to prepare for war. He concluded alliances with Venice and Poland and was able to call upon some of the major nobles of the Holy Roman Empire to provide troops.

Emperor Leopold I

In Spring of 1683, Mustafa marched about 150,000 troops into Austria, accompanied by a force of 40,000 Crimean Tatars. Leopold retreated to Passau, leaving a garrison of 15,000 in Vienna under Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg. When the Ottoman forces arrived at Pechtoldsdorf south of Vienna, Mustafa persuaded the town to peacefully surrender, but then massacred the population. This action persuaded von Starhemberg that he had to hold Vienna at all costs, because any surrender would result in another massacre.

Note how close to Ottoman territory Vienna is

The siege began on July 17^th, and the Turks succeeded in completely cutting off Vienna, so that the food supply quickly became a problem. But the Austrians had nearly three times as much artillery as the Turks, making it hard for the Turks to launch an effective attack on the city. The Turks attempted to sap the walls, but the Austrians detected the Turkish mines and were able to intercept and destroy them. Von Starhemberg was severely wounded, but was able to maintain effective control of his forces, ordering that any soldier found asleep should be shot.

Then a joint German-Polish army of 80,000 troops arrived. There had been considerable quarrelling about how the troops would be paid and who would lead them, but eventually it was agreed that King Jan Sobieski of Poland would be the lead general.

Jan III Sobieski

Aware of the arriving relief army, Mustafa ordered an assault of the city very early on September 12^th (while it was still dark, actually). But the Imperial forces intervened, forcing a land battle. After half a day of fighting, Sobieski achieved a notable tactical success. Noticing that the Turks had not fortified one side of their position because of the presence of the Kahlenberg mountain, Sobieski managed to get 18,000 cavalry and a number of cannons up the opposite side of the Kahlenberg. In the mid-afternoon he led what has been called the largest cavalry charge in European history down the forested side of the Kahlenberg and into the exhausted Ottoman ranks, which promptly fled. Overall, between the siege and the battle, the Turks lost at least 30,000 men and an enormous amount of loot. Completely disgraced, the unfortunate Kara Mustafa was strangled in Belgrade on the sultan’s orders late in the same year.

The failure of the siege of Vienna was only the start of the Great Turkish War, which lasted down to 1699 and resulted in the significant loss of Turkish territory in what is now Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This marked the beginning of the contraction of the Ottoman state in Europe, a process that would slowly continue for the next century, pick up steam in the 19^th century, and culminate in the break-up of the Empire after World War I.

Polish Winged Hussars at the Battle of Vienna

 

The Day of the Siege

The film tells the story of the battle of Vienna by focusing on two main characters, Kara Mustafa (Enrico Lo Verso) and the Capuchin friar Marco d’Aviano (F. Murray Abraham). Mustafa’s story revolves around a recurrent dream that his wife/concubine has that Mustafa will be killed with a hail of arrows. He consults a blind holy man who tells him that there is some truth in the dream and that while much blood will be shed, Mustafa’s blood will not. Are you noticing the subtle hint that his arrogance will get him strangled?

Lo Verso as Mustafa

But the film is more interested in d’Aviano, who is a real historical figure. He was a fairly ordinary friar until 1676, when he apparently healed a nun who had been bedridden for more than a decade. As a result of his he acquired the reputation of a miracle-worker, and people began to seek him out for his blessing. Among those who sought his help was Leopold I, whose wife had been unable to conceive a male heir. D’Aviano became Leopold’s spiritual counselor and remained in close contact with him for the rest of D’Aviano’s life. Leopold was by nature a somewhat indecisive man, and d’Aviano’s more forceful personality helped Leopold make many decisions.

The film shows d’Aviano realizing in 1682 that the Turks are planning to attack. Historically, this is probably because d’Aviano learned of the Turkish declaration of war, which was made in August of 1682. But in the film, the Turks don’t declare war until March of 1683, which has the effect of making d’Aviano a prophet. He goes to Vienna and tries unsuccessfully to persuade Leopold (Piotry Adamczyk) that the Turks are planning to invade, but Leopold refuses to believe him and then basically wets himself when he gets the declaration of war. D’aviano winds up at Vienna and helps rally resistance to the Turks.

Abraham as d’Aviano

The film also exaggerates the military imbalance to make the Turks more threatening. Mustafa commands 300,000 troops, not 150,000, and appears to have way more artillery than the Austrians do. When Mustafa sets up his camp, the Tatar commander warns him that they could be attacked from the Kahlenberg, but Mustafa scornfully refuses to seriously consider the possibility. The Turks successfully sap the walls of Vienna in at least one spot, which doesn’t seem to have happened.

Apart from these deviations, the film basically gets the story right. It focuses at some length on the political complexities of the Imperial side, with the argument turning on German reluctance to allow the Polish Sobieski (Jerzy Skolomowski) to command the troops. Sobieski resolves the dispute by threatening to leave if he is not allowed to command and by declaring his intention to lead his cavalry over the Kahlenberg. Clearly, the screenwriter really liked this whole Kahlenberg issue and wants to make sure that the viewer understands that Mustafa was arrogant and Sobieski was a brilliant commander.

The charge of the Winged Hussars down the Kahlenberg

But the film is weakened by a variety of problems. It invents the detail that when they were both young men, Mustafa met d’Aviano in Venice and saved his life, in exchange for which d’Aviano gave Mustafa a wolf’s tooth as a good luck charm. Do you get the irony of Mustafa saving d’Aviano and then d’Aviano successfully opposing Mustafa so that Mustafa is defeated and gets executed? Do you? Cuz it’s really cool and ironical and stuff, so the film is going to make sure you get it.

And then to add to this, the film invents a Turk, Abu’l (Yorgo Voyagis), whose name is gibberish Arabic, meaning ‘Father of the’. (Abu is a common element of Arab (not Turkish) names, given to a man after his first son is born.) But Abu’l has no children in the film, just a deaf-mute wife who is able to understand people when THEY TALK REALLY LOUD TO HER. No joke. Abu’l lives in Italy for some reason, and d’Aviano saves him from an Italian mob after the declaration of war. But then Abu’l decides he has to leave his wife and go join the Turkish army where Mustafa decides to trust him. As a result, there are repeated dramatic scenes when Abu’l runs into d’Aviano, and then his deaf-mute wife, then d’Aviano again, and then disguises himself as Mustafa and gets himself shot repeatedly by the Austrians, thus fulfilling Mrs. Mustafa’s dream, because foreshadowing and irony and all that.

For me, though, the biggest problem with the film comes with its production values. Normally, I don’t factor in production values when I’m deciding what I think about a movie. Cheap production values do not invalidate a good story (see lots of original Star Trek and Doctor Who episodes). But the producers here clearly decided that their sets couldn’t quite stand up to close scrutiny, so they used very cheap CGI to overlay many scenes with falling snow, billowing smoke and dust, and other atmospheric effects. Not only does this call attention to the cheapness of the production, but it actually makes many scenes hard to see and renders watching them a headache.

Another flaw with the script is that Abu’l is the only character to undergo any appreciable character development, and he’s mostly just a jerk with no clear motivation most of the time, so rescuing his wife from a Turkish rape-stockade looks like growth. D’Aviano, despite being the main character, never really learns anything, and while Mustafa gets an appropriate comeuppance for his arrogance, he never seems to reflect on his mistakes.

The death of Kara Mustafa

Overall, it’s nice that the film wanted to tell the story of what is arguably one of the great turning point battles in Western history. The film gets the job done adequately from that standpoint. But as a movie, the only real drama for the viewer is who’s going to win the battle of Vienna, and the film constantly nudges the viewer in the ribs and says “look at this! Mustafa’s gonna lose cuz he’s arrogant and misunderstands the prophecy!”, which ruins the only suspense the film can generate.

So I don’t recommend this movie because meh. But at least it’s not Dragon Knight.

 

Want to Know More?

Day of the Siegeis available on Amazon.

If you want to know more about the Battle of Vienna, check out The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe.

Dracula Untold: Don’t Go See This Movie

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Anita Sarkesian, Dracula, Dracula Untold, Luke Evans, Medieval Europe, Mehmet II, Ottoman Empire, Sarah Gadon, Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler

There have been lots of Dracula movies over the years, and with the current fad for vampire stuff, it was only a question of time until some studio went back to that particular well. Dracula Untold (2014, dir. Gary Shore) is a mediocre example of a vampire flick. It’s neither especially good nor especially bad. It has a lot of the same problems that recent vampire films like Underworld: Rise of the Lycans have: medieval characters wearing improbably silly armor, sunlight and clouds that come and go largely on the whims of the plot, medieval architecture that makes little sense, and people who spend lots of time running around at night because that makes them vulnerable to vampires (who knew that the Turkish army mostly traveled at night, and—I kid not–blindfolded?). It’s basically a fantasy action film. But it sticks its toe in the waters of history (and generally decides that these waters are too chilly for it), so I felt like I ought to review it here.

Spoiler Alert: I discuss a couple fairly major plot points, so if you want to see this movie, you shouldn’t read further. However, for reasons I’ll explain later, I don’t think you should go see this movie. So I’d encourage you to just keep reading.

The Film’s Vlad Dracula

The film deals with the life of Vlad Dracula (Luke Evans). Vlad was given as tribute to the Ottoman Sultan as a boy. He was trained to fight as a Janissary and served the Sultan so ruthlessly he became known as ‘the Impaler’. Eventually he was made prince of Transylvania, although it’s not clear (at least to me) whether he inherited the position or was given it by the Sultan.

At the start of the film, which is set in the 1440s, a messenger arrives from the Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper, playing a distinctly non-Turkish looking Turk), demanding tribute in silver and 1000 boys to be raised as Janissaries (the film incorrectly depicts this as a practice that was terminated prior to the 1440s, when in fact the Janissaries were an import element in the Turkish military down into the 18^th century, and weren’t disbanded until 1826). To save his son from this, Vlad tracks down a vampire and asks for help in defeating Mehmed. The vampire agrees to temporarily turn him into a vampire for three days, warning him that if he drinks human blood during that period, he will become a vampire forever. I think you can already guess where this is going.

Luke Evans as Vlad Dracula; note the silly plate armor

The film depicts Vlad as a good ruler, a man who deeply loves his wife and son and who is well-liked by his people. He also, inexplicably, has no army, which is why he needs to seek help from a vampire. He admits to having once impaled thousands of peasants while serving Mehmed, but he is nicer than that now. Later, he returns to his impaling ways after he slaughters a bunch of Turks. But basically he’s a loving family man even after he’s become an inhuman monster. At least he doesn’t sparkle.

The Real Vlad Dracula vs. The Cinematic Vlad Dracula

It’s hard to sort out fact from fiction with the historical Vlad the Impaler, because the best sources for his life were written after his death. There are a number of German pamphlets that describe him as a horrible person, and a number of Russian pamphlets that are pro-Vlad (although they still mention his unsavory habit of impaling people and torturing small animals). And there’s Romanian folk tales about him to add to the confusion; they both revile him for his cruelty and celebrate him from his supposed hostility to German merchants. So there aren’t a lot of good, reliable, unbiased sources out there about him. And I’ll readily admit that Eastern European history isn’t my strong suit. But there’s a fairly clear core of fact we can discuss. So here goes.

Vlad’s father, Vlad II, was the Voivode (Duke) of Wallachia. He was inducted by Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire into the Order of the Dragon, a military order created specifically to oppose the Ottoman Empire, which was in the process of pushing up into the Balkans. Because of this Vlad II was known as Vlad Dracul (Romanian for “the dragon”). His son was therefore known as Dracula (“son of the Dragon”).

When he was 13, Vlad and his younger brother Radu were given to Sultan Murad II, not to be raised as Janissaries (since Janissaries were slaves) but rather to serve as hostages for their father’s good behavior. As a result he was raised with the future Mehmet II (this fact the film gets right). Vlad became jealous of the attention his better-looking brother received at court (Radu was nicknamed “the Handsome”).

Probably the most historical image of Vlad the Impaler

In 1448, with Turkish support, Vlad succeeded his father as Voivode of Wallachia. He was quickly ousted, but returned to power in 1456. But he soon defied a request for tribute and young boys to serve as Janissaries, probably because paying it would mean acknowledging that Wallachia was part of the Ottoman Empire. So instead, he had the turbans of the Turkish emissaries nailed to their heads. (In Vlad’s defense, he wasn’t the only Eastern European ruler to indulge this sartorial fancy.)

When the Turks invaded, Vlad ambushed a large group of cavalry and defeated them. He ordered them impaled on spikes, with the commander getting the highest spike. In 1462, when Mehmet showed up at Targoviste, he discovered 15-20,000 of his troops impaled on spikes; sickened, he retreated briefly. As a result of this the Turks called him ‘Lord Impaler’. His Romanian nickname Tepes (“the Impaler”) seems to have been bestowed on him in the mid-16^th century, and was not a term used at the time.

However, Dracula wasn’t just impaling his Turkish enemies. Vlad seems to have used impaling and other forms of cruelty as a tactic to dominate the boyars of Wallachia (the land-owning aristocracy) and to encourage obedience. The boyars had conspired against Vlad II, so when Dracula came to power, he invited many of them to a feast, impaled those responsible for his father’s death, and enslaved the rest for a construction project. He reportedly impaled the merchants and boyars of the city of Brasov on St. Bartholemew’s Day, 1459.

Vlad having a snack

Various stories circulate about his other cruelties, such as impaling adulterous women, unchaste widows, thieves, and dishonest merchants. Nor was he just into impaling; sometimes he reportedly indulged in other forms of unpleasantness, such as flaying people and cutting off women’s breasts. When his concubine claimed that she was pregnant, he reportedly cut her open to find out the truth. However, given the nature of the sources about Vlad, it’s hard to know how much truth there is behind these stories. It’s clear Vlad Dracula was a pretty nasty guy, but just how nasty is hard to say.

Ultimately though, Mehmet sent in Vlad’s brother Radu, backed with enough troops to exhaust Vlad’s forces. They captured Poenari Castle, his stronghold, which the film inaccurately calls ‘Castle Dracula’. In the film, it’s not surprising this castle gets captured; it’s built in the middle of a plain instead of on a mountain cliff. (In general, the architecture in this film makes little sense, and the first castle we see in the film, when the Turkish emissary comes demanding tribute, would have been a much stronger defensible position to take a stand at. But apparently that didn’t serve the needs of the action scenes very well.) Vlad’s wife reportedly leapt to her death rather than be captured, and Vlad was arrested by the king of Hungary, for reasons that are still unclear.

Some time later, however, the king patched things up with Vlad, let him out of prison, and let him marry his cousin Ilona (not ‘Mirena’ as this movie would have it). He returned to power in 1475, and died late the next year; stories about how he died vary—a Turkish ambush, betrayed by the boyars, or in an accident. He was buried, perhaps at Comana (not at Snagov, as 19th century tradition would have it, or in Naples, as recent crappy scholarship claims).

Also, as a minor note, Vlad Dracula did not kill Mehmet, who died in 1481 of natural causes. At the time of the movie, Mehmet II was in his mid-teens. He was a major figure in Turkish history, so killing him in the 1440s is sort of like killing Elizabeth I in the late 1550s not long after she has started her reign.

So the film is, to say the least, not particularly historical. But it’s a film about how a historical figure became a vampire, so you probably knew that already. It’s a bit perverse to make one of the most infamously cruel figures in history a romantic hero, as others have already pointed out. But I suppose in 600 years, we can look forward to seeing a rom-com about Pol Pot or Josef Stalin, in which our hero has a meet-cute with some dewy ingénue and then has to keep his genocidal schemes from her in order to win her love, with wacky consequences.

It’s also sad that the film decided to omit Vlad’s brother Radu. The two of them seem to have had a powerful rivalry, and making Radu one of the central bad guys would have given the plot more…um…bite. But I suppose we’ll just have to save that for a better movie.

So Why Shouldn’t I Go See It?

The film is not particularly good history, but it’s not historically offensive either, unlike, for example, Braveheart. My objection to it has little to do with my role as a historian. My objection to this film is entirely about my role as a decent human being who thinks women deserve to be treated better in film.

The movie is neither particularly feminist nor anti-feminist for the most part. Mirena (Sarah Gadon) is a generic cinematic wife. She gets one moment of being commanding, but is otherwise just there to give Dracula a motive to do anything to fight the Turks. She and his essentially pointless son are mostly just the triggers for all the manpain modern cinematic heroes are required to experience.

Sarah Gadon as Mirena

But then, as the film approaches its climax, it suddenly veers into one of the most horrifically misogynistic tropes developed by the video game industry. Mirena falls off a high balcony of a monastery (why did these monks build a pointless balcony over a high cliff and forget to include a railing?) and Dracula is unable to catch her in time. As she lies dying (having been tough enough to actually not die instantly from the long fall), she begs Dracula to kill her by drinking her blood, knowing that this will transform him permanently into a vampire and give him the power to defeat Mehmet. Dracula does as she asks and thereby gains vengeance on Mehmet.

As Anita Sarkesian has pointed out, the trope of the Damsel in Distress begging the hero to kill her has become a common story-telling device in video games. But the ‘Euthanized Damsel’, as she terms this sub-trope, is a deeply misogynistic idea, in which women beg their loved ones to kill them and then thank them for engaging in violence against them. As Sarkesian puts it, “These women are asking for it, quite literally.” Given that Dracula immediately runs off and starts making vampires of his other dying followers, the film never explains why he doesn’t just do the same to Mirena (we can hypothesize that he can’t make other vampires because he hasn’t yet drunk human blood and therefore doesn’t have that ability, but the film never clearly says this), so there is no objective reason why Mirena has to die, except that Vlad’s unhappiness is incomplete without him having to kill his beloved wife. In this particular example, all of Dracula’s immortal unending manpain is due to Mirena begging him to become an evil monster to avenge her and defeat the Turks. So Dracula is just a good guy who gets to suffer an eternity of torment because he loves his wife and kills her just like she asks him to. Some women are just never satisfied.

Here’s the video in which Sarkesian lays out her critique. Give it a watch; it’s disturbing to realize how widespread this trope is in video games. I enjoy video games, and I’ve played my share of them over the years. So I’m not hostile to video games or even video game violence. But I am hostile to the sort of misogyny that Sarkesian is calling out.

So why do I think you shouldn’t go see this film? Because you’d be giving money to a movie that has decided to embrace one of the most disturbingly misogynist tropes in modern storytelling, and in so doing, you’d be rewarding Hollywood for sinking to this level and encouraging the use of this device in more films. Hollywood obsessively reproduces whatever sells, and if this film sells well, it will encourage more Hollywood movies to delve into video game misogyny. There is, of course, already talk of a sequel; the studio seems to be hoping for a franchise. Avoiding this film would be a small gesture, but honestly, this movie isn’t good enough on its merits to justify your money anyway. Wait until it comes to Netflix, and then watch something else instead.

Want to Know More?

Don’t see this movie. Read the book instead; it’s much better. Here’s the Kindle edition of Dracula

Stefan Pascu has written a couple histories of Transylvania, so if you want to learn about the region, you might try his A History of Transylvania. However, I haven’t read it, so I can’t really vouch for it.

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