The recently released film Nosferatu is a modern remake of a 1922 silent German film by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The German Expressionist cinema remains influential for “its innovative techniques, hunting visuals and thematic depth,” as it explores fears of disease, death, and the unknown and has become a landmark in film history.
The remake by Robert Eggers centers around the obsessive relationship between Ellen -Lilly-Rose Depp- and the Vampire, Count Orlok, played by Bill Skarsgard. As in the original film, it incorporates elements of horror and the supernatural -as beautifully portrayed in Ellen‘s dreams-. The historical references and the accuracy of the mood and mores of the era, such as fears of the plague and religious superstitions, are astonishing.
In the current version of Nosferatu, the main character, Ellen, is a young woman of thinly built and frail disposition, veiled by melancholia, that is hunted in her dreams by a sinister large creature of thick bone structure, darkened features, thunderous voice, and large penis; an overpowering Vampire, Count Orlok, who relentlessly seeks her full surrender to him, and the communion of their souls. “You belong to me,” he says to her with delusional conviction. Thus, he would not stop at the destruction of women, children, men, and all in his path to achieve their union.
In a beautiful symbiosis of Horror and Romance, Ellen poetically, like an aching soul, longs in her dreams for his presence. “Come to me! Hear my call, come to me!” she says desperately. But despite her confusing desires, she suffers the malignant effects of Count Orlok’s predatory entreaties during the daytime. She becomes chronically melancholic and depressed, having regular bouts of “somnambulism” and episodic fits of seizures.
To all around her, including her husband, her friends, and the frustrated physician, Ellen is a hopelessly deranged young woman, a tortured soul. After unsuccessful treatments, consultation with a different physician is sought. Ellen is then examined by a physician who combined scientific methods with exorcism practices and followed the teachings of Paracelsus (1493-1541). Dr. Von Franz diagnosed her condition as demonic possession. Then, a Middle Ages controversy ensued: is she a neurasthenic, hysteric, as the traditional science has her? or a young woman possessed by a demon?
Later, it becomes clear how ambivalent and confused she is about her feelings for Count Orlok: “Does evil come from within us, or from beyond?” Her longings for him have the same intensity of the terror that he engenders. For example, in one of the most revealing scenes, Ellen confronts Count Orlok, Nosferatu, rejecting him and refusing to admit to any desires for him, to which he replies, “I came because you called me!”
After the disciple of Paracelsus, Professor Von Franz, unraveled the mystery of her ailment through exorcism, she realized the extent of her predicament. She later confessed to her husband that, indeed, she was once lonely and deprived of love. She called for companionship, and the Count responded. Her pleading woke him up from his eternal tomb. What followed, at first, were innumerable nights of passion that later turned into torture and terror. Her lover became her tormentor.
Why Trauma and Redemption?
It becomes evident to a psychologically minded observer that her struggles were not due to being possessed by supernatural forces, in this case, a Vampire, but rather the result of repressed severe trauma that buried away from her consciousness in the deepest recesses of her mind, bubbled up in the myriads of symptoms that she showed.
Pierre Janet (1859-1947), a prominent French physician, neurologist, and philosopher, in “l’etat mental des hysteriques (1892), explored the mental states of hysteric patients and described clearly and systematically how the mind erects psychological defenses against overwhelming traumatic experiences. He laid the foundation for what currently is our understanding of trauma, dissociation, and the subconscious.
Pierre Janet further described how traumatic memories may manifest as sensory perceptions, emotional states, or behavioral reenactment, which became the foundation of our modern understanding of psychological traumas.
He observed that Hysteria presents features such as paralysis, seizures, and amnesia without discernible physical cause. Also, resulting from severe trauma, these features are often accompanied by dissociation: “a mental process where parts of information are separated from the individual’s conscious awareness.” For example, the person experiencing trauma showed gaps in memory of specific events or exhibited trance-like states.
The film successfully, in a beautiful depiction of the outer manifestation of trauma, showed Ellen‘s torment in her tortured facial expressions and her lost soul demeanor as she harbors an overwhelming pain inside her.
As a result of her interactions with Count Orlok, Ellen’s trauma -like all psychological trauma-takes life on its own and overwhelms her existence by becoming a parasite inside her sub-conscious; she goes on to experience episodes of dream-like states where she often acts out the content of her trauma.
In psychological trauma literature, it is often reported about the individual(s) that keep on repeating -in the same fashion- traumatic situations or exposing themselves to traumatic situations while not being able to explain the reason for their behaviors. Freud coined the term “repetition compulsion” to describe such a clinical phenomenon. Throughout the film, to the befuddlement of those around her, Ellen kept on reenacting her sexual trauma and acting as if possessed or existing in another realm.
In one scene, as an example of the previous statement, Ellen walks on the beach with her best friend. After a brief separation, her friend finds her on the beach, legs spread and agitated, appearing to fight off an attacker.
Like all subjects of extreme trauma, Ellen’s psychological trauma had become central to her existence and the focus of her attention. She became weird, dark, isolated, and branded by others as a deranged being. Ellen’s trauma, manifested in fragmented memories, kept on hunting her on a nightly basis to the extent that she refused to be alone. Finally, when her husband had to be out of town on business, she could not escape facing her trauma. The trauma overwhelms her memory; she can no longer repress it.
The film’s creator, Roger Eggers, displayed a superb exercise of gothic beauty by skillfully blending horror and romance. The depiction of the demonic possession of Ellen is nothing but a pretext, a subterfuge, to represent the brutalizing power that Count Orlok -the traumatizer- had over Ellen- the traumatized-.
Not surprisingly, like any victim of severe trauma, Ellen became chronically melancholic and depressed, with regular bouts of “somnambulism” and fits of seizures. It was evident to all around her that she had become a disturbed, tortured soul.
As the plot thickens, it becomes evident that Ellen is conflicted about her trauma, her longings for Count Orlok, and her simultaneous repulsion of him. – A common finding in people subjected to traumatic victimization is the confusion, “it was my fault,” about their relationship with their assailant, especially if the trauma occurred at a tender age when the child is longing for affection-.
In a later scene, Ellen confronts Nosferatu, Count Orlok (the symbolic representation of her trauma), rejecting him and showing marked contempt and repulsion for him. But a self-assured, callous Nosferatu replies, “I only came because you called me.” He was right! She later admits to her husband that, indeed, as a child, she was longing and desperate for affection and called for it. In the beginning, it was magic, she said, but later, it was cruel and painful.
In the end, whether she continued longing for the Count’s presence or the Count became fixated on her, she had to confront her conflict and address her trauma. Unable to cope further with the destruction that Count Orlok’s path created, she felt compelled to give herself to him in an eternal communion of their soul and save herself and others.
In the psychological trauma literature, as pioneered by P. Janet, J.M. Charcot, and S. Freud, the resolution or alleviation of trauma involves incorporating all its fragmented memories. As a result, a coherent narrative develops, and the individual is finally able to fully contextualize the nature, events, and causality of her/his trauma. In other words, the subject comes to terms with her/his traumatic past and fuses the images of the past, putting them all together to rest.
The traumatized subject is finally able to verbalize and comprehend the disjointed memories and alleviate her/his inner tension.
The film, in yet another outstanding scene, depicts Ellen‘s surrender to her assailant and her agreement to their union. What ensues next is a scene of animalistic, ravenous passion between two lovers. Both are faced with untenable desires. Ellen must risk it all, face the apex of her fears, for her freedom. But, as the Count sucks her blood with gusto, he also must make, like an addict, a difficult decision. Either sacrifice everything at the altar of his desires or leave the object of his utmost desires and live to see another day.
Count Orlok, a Vampire, cannot endure sunlight without dying. However, while making love to Ellen, inebriated by unbridled desires, he timidly looks at the rising sun to his right and then at Ellen underneath him, and one can see his predicament: should I stay, or should I go? He could not resist her!
In the end, he lost his life burnt by sunlight rather than leaving her bosom. She lost hers by facing her ultimate fear and repulsion, the eternal union with the Count. They both rested peacefully in each other’s arms.
The climax of their affairs is two-fold. On the one hand, Count Orlok, like any subject of obsessive, addictive desires, feels compelled to satisfy his inner tension even at the expense of his life. On the other hand, it may also represent the resolution of Ellen’s trauma. She resolutely faced her trauma even at the expense of symbolically losing her life to break free from the chains of her trauma finally.
The film, in my opinion, is a beautiful, gothic portrait of psychological trauma. The context is medieval religious superstition and the supernatural, but the essence is an allegory of psychological trauma.
The main character, Ellen, clearly, with surgical precision, reenacts all the salient features of trauma. Count Orlok, Nosferatu, could not be more fixated and terrifying, even if he tried. There is no better symbolic figure than a Vampire to illustrate the soul-sucking quality of trauma. How it infiltrates a live body and obsessively persecutes it, suctioning all its life.
The Professor, Dr. Von Franz, could not be more accurate in representing the perennial struggle of science versus superstition. One deals with empirically verifiable evidence, the other with supernatural or blind-to-naked eyes superstition. His character depicted the oddities of an eccentric practitioner operating at the margins of scientific norms.
The film deserves kudos for such an accurate allegorical representation of psychological trauma.
Gut gemacht!
P.R. Thompson
February 21, 2025