The meaning of life and death in “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night”

By Timo Schmitz

The 2014 United States Farsi-language Neo-Western Vampire movie “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” depicts the romance of a girl who lives in a cellar apartment and a boy called Arash who is hard-working and talented, but comes out of a difficult family background as his mother is dead and his father suffers from drug addiction and paranoia. The scene is set in a little town called “Bad City” which is a symbol for any small town in Iran which is rich of resources, but poor in living standard, as the people are exploited and have to choose their niches to make a life somehow. The difficult social structure is shown through Hossein (Arash’s father), Atti (a prostitute), Saeed (a pimp and drug-dealer), and Shaydah (the daughter of rich parents). The meaning of life is probably the main key in the whole movie, as the town is without any liveliness and the whole movie is black-white, which undermines the tristesse. Even the industry is mostly only shown at night, as the economy in Bad City is like a shadow, something which doesn’t bring light into the darkness. All the characters are somehow liveless, one could say they are even like dead people. Hossein is not really alive since he needs drugs everyday and gets paranoia, Atti is not really alive since she is subject of sexual exploitation and forgot her dreams long ago, Saeed is liveless since he forgot any sense of justice and cannot survive five minutes without taking a line of cocaine, but even Shaydah is liveless, though she is a rich woman, she lacks of humaness and uses to spend her time in decay. A small boy who is caught between the slumlife and Western modernity (depicted through his skateboard), has no hope as well; he lives in a space of fear and insecurity.

After the pimp exploits the prostitute and throws her out of the car, the unnamed girl visits him. She stays passive at first, but when Saeed tries to grab her body she gets into a play by seducing his hand which Saeed sees as a kind of affirmation. However, she bites his hand which is cut off, and uses it as toy as if she was to seduce him, just to bite him right to death. Next, she kills a homeless who is sleeping half-dead in the dump. As last, she kills Hossein after he forcibly drugs Atti. Some people have seen a feminist plot in this, however, it seems that feminism is just a side phenomena of a side phenomena, as the only thing that her victims have in common is the fact that they are all male and though they use abusive force against women, there is an even bigger motive for their killing than revenge: they have no free will anymore. The beggar has no free will as he is dying on the streets, Saeed has no free will as he is controlled by cocaine, and Hossein has no free will anymore since his paranoia is a danger for the whole society. Although all characters are walking into decay, the girl just kills those who are already soul-dead. However, she warns Atti as she already forgot all her wishes and dreams, anyways, she still has the choice to take all her money and go away. The girl also warns the boy of the decaying process and intimidates him to work for good. Even Shaydah who intoxicates herself has a free will to choose another path. As the unnamed girl takes away all their wealthy objects, it shows that wealth means nothing for life, even expensive watches cannot stop the fate of death. It is wrong to say that the girl just kills the “bad guys”, since even Arash is involved in dirty business, but he still has a vivid soul and is able to choose freely.

The romance between the girl and Arash is very important as it depicts the will to live. The music used in this film and the breath-taking images undermine it. She lives in a kind of ecstasy when listening to music, and she tries to find herself. How important life is for the whole plot can be seen through the song “Death” by White Lies. The second stanza of the song  “I love the quiet of the nighttime/ When the sun is drowned in the deathly sea/ I can feel my heart beating as I speed from/ The sense of time catching up with me/ The sky’s set out like a pathway/ But who decides which route we take/ As people drift into a dreamworld/ I close my eyes as my hands shake/ And when I see a new day/ Who’s driving this anyway/ I picture my own grave,/ ‘cause fear’s got a hold on me” shows the conflict of free will as it is not sure which route life takes and where fate leads the people and how to escape the bad life. Both lovers are somehow a rescue for each other, an essence and oneness, as they cannot realize themselves without each other. Next to the village, one can find a large mass grave where all the dead bodies are thrown, a picture which is already introduced in the first minutes of the movie – besides the industry. The deadly environment thus is shown in motion, in character action and in the music, one cannot flee it. One is confronted with the issue and its causes, such as exploitation, (in)humanity, time, life as a moving road in trance without determination. This can even be seen through the tv program that appears in the film, where a presenter gives counselling far away of the common people’s reality and thus depicts a social estrangement.

In the end, Arash decides to get out of Bad City together with the girl. Though he behaves insecure in the beginning, as she is the murderer of his beloved father, he finally decides to go with her. As viewer, we will never know where they go and whether they can make a better life.

Thus, we have to ask ourselves: Where does our life lead us?, Shouldn’t we choose the right path before decay will lead us into indetermination? Many people nowadays suffer depression and diseases, and many people accept exploitation, even being exploited without interfering into their situation (so to say a paradoxical estrangement of life, in which human beings are the means to an end and thus they do not realise their limited life decisions or simply comfort themselves). Are they really alive? Aren’t they dead people, meeting day for day like a puppet on a string? Don’t we give up our wishes and ideals and hurt ourselves everyday? Who cares if there is one person more or less dumped in the mass grave? Who will care about all the nameless people? The faces who cause the suffrance are not shown, just as in real life. We don’t know who exploits us, as it is a force. Some people nowadays blame the one percent super rich people, but even they are not spared. Exploitation is like a metaphysical force, it grasps everyone, rich and poor, and tears them down. Do they live because they have money? Are they more lucky or more healthy? There is not anyone shown in the movie who can be blamed for the bad situation. No one can be named! All people are pushed down, and there is only one force that is counterpart to the force of exploitation, it is the force of love. When the two lovers dance together and bathe in each other’s emotion depicted through the music, which makes a oneness, they both can be free and independent. They cannot even blame each other for what bad they have done, because love can overcome all difficulties. This is shown when both meet at the factory. Though they have a scarce conversation, they want to be drowned by the force of love and become independent. Not to hurt each other, she leaves, but she cannot let him go in the end. The vampire-ness can be seen as both, as hero and as grey shade of life. It shows the abysm that people have in themselves, the lust for blood.

“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” shows the dilemma of life and death. All characters want to be alive, but they live like the dead, lost of all hope. It seems that a person is not alive, just because he or she is living. But the ending leaves the hope that there might be an escape: love. Through love, the characters can escape their lifes as dead and become alive.

Film data:

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Directed and written by Ana Lily Amirpour
Produced by Justin Begnaud, Sina Sayyah, Elijah Wood
Logan Pictures/ Spectre Vision/ VICE Films
USA, 2014. Language: Farsi. 101 minutes.

Published on 28 April 2017. Republished on 11 July 2023.