Movies - Dracula: A Love Tale – Where Immortality Becomes a Curse and Love the Only Salvation

By Mulder, 05 june 2025

Eight years after the lavish, divisive, and financially precarious venture that was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, acclaimed French filmmaker Luc Besson is stepping back into the spotlight with Dracula: A Love Tale, a brooding and sensuous reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s gothic myth. While on the surface it may appear like yet another cinematic retelling of the infamous vampire lord’s tale, those who know Luc Besson’s brand of visual poetry and kinetic passion will recognize from the outset that this is something far more personal—less a monster movie than an emotional odyssey, one in which time, memory, and yearning collide across frozen landscapes and shadowed hearts. In his own words, it wasn’t the classic character of Dracula that stirred the creative process, but a singular human connection: his fascination with actor Caleb Landry Jones, who stars as the cursed immortal prince. Their collaboration on Dogman in 2023 ignited something deeper than a typical director-actor bond; it inspired an entirely new cinematic dream, culminating in what could be the most ambitious French film of the year.

The project, shrouded in mystery until early 2024, took many by surprise—not least because of its quiet genesis. Rather than launching it as a major studio franchise, Luc Besson conceived the film out of a desire to dive once more into deep character work, wrapped in a mythic structure. The story begins in the 15th century, where Prince Vladimir, devastated by the brutal and senseless death of his beloved wife, turns away from God in grief. This spiritual renunciation curses him with eternal life, transforming him into the creature we know as Dracula. Yet instead of embracing his vampirism as horror mythology often does, Besson reframes Dracula’s journey as an endless search for emotional redemption—a man suspended between centuries, haunted not by bloodlust but by a singular lost love. Through this lens, Caleb Landry Jones’s tortured performance becomes the soul of the film, not its spectacle. His Dracula is not simply undead; he is emotionally embalmed in longing, and it’s this grief that guides the entire aesthetic and tone of the production.

Visually, Dracula: A Love Tale is crafted as a frozen opera, shot in the stark, sweeping snowscapes of the Kainuu region in Finland. While early reports claimed filming was taking place in Lapland, local sources, including the Helsingin Sanomat, clarified that the haunting, barren visuals were conjured instead in the equally atmospheric but less commercial Kainuu, chosen for its isolated beauty and haunting silence. These visuals, orchestrated by cinematographer Colin Wandersman, evoke a sense of glacial emotional stillness, echoing the internal state of its protagonist. Complementing the imagery is a haunting original score by the legendary Danny Elfman, whose music lends a tragic lullaby to every frame, reinforcing the film’s operatic ambition. In Dracula: A Love Tale, silence often speaks louder than screams, and sadness eclipses violence. It’s less about horror than about the existential paralysis that comes with immortality.

The supporting cast is no less compelling. Matilda De Angelis, who plays Dracula’s long-lost love, offers an ethereal presence that walks the line between memory and myth. Her portrayal is likely to reframe the idea of the muse in gothic fiction—not a passive beauty, but a force of spiritual memory that guides Dracula through the centuries. Meanwhile, Christoph Waltz, ever the enigmatic screen chameleon, is expected to deliver a performance both serpentine and philosophical, though his exact role remains tightly under wraps. Given Waltz’s history of effortlessly combining menace and charm, it’s likely his character will act as a mirror or foil to Dracula—perhaps another immortal, or a representation of divine judgment. One thing is certain: this is a cast built not for blockbuster punch but for layered, slow-burning emotional impact.

For those familiar with Luc Besson’s tumultuous career, Dracula: A Love Tale feels like more than just a film—it feels like a resurrection. The once-unstoppable director behind The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, and La Femme Nikita has endured his share of failures and fallouts. His last large-scale production, Valerian, while visually arresting, failed to connect with audiences in the way his earlier work had. In the years that followed, his production company EuropaCorp flirted with bankruptcy, and his credibility within the industry seemed on shaky ground. Yet rather than retreat, Besson returned to the core of his artistry. In 2020, he filmed June & John, an intimate project created during the pandemic with smartphones and a skeleton crew. Then came Dogman, a film that saw Caleb Landry Jones deliver a performance so transfixing that it reignited Besson’s directorial passion. Dracula is the natural evolution of this trajectory—ambitious yet personal, baroque yet intimate, anchored not by spectacle alone but by the beating heart of a director rediscovering his voice.

The film is produced by Virginie Besson-Silla, Luc Besson’s longtime collaborator and spouse, under the EuropaCorp and LBP Productions banners, with distribution in France handled by SND. It’s positioned to not only dominate the summer box office in its home country but to challenge the boundaries of what French genre cinema can be on the international stage. Despite its English-language presentation and globally recognized cast, this is still unmistakably a French film—steeped in mood, poetic melancholy, and symbolic architecture. It recalls the tradition of the cinéma du look movement that Besson helped pioneer in the 1980s, alongside directors like Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax—a style that privileged lush visuals, intense emotion, and unapologetically romantic characters.

Ultimately, Dracula: A Love Tale is not about the vampire—it’s about what we do with grief. It’s about the ache of memory, the weight of love that refuses to die, and the devastating hope that time will eventually bring healing. Luc Besson has transformed a legend into an elegy, and in doing so, has offered audiences something rare: a story we think we know, told through a prism of personal obsession, creative rebirth, and artistic risk. It is not merely his return to form—it is a cinematic spell, cast in ice and sealed in blood, that marks the reawakening of one of France’s most daring and divisive auteurs. Come July 30, 2025 in France (later in United States), audiences will be invited not to fear Dracula, but to mourn with him. And perhaps, to believe—if only for two hours—that love really is stronger than death.

Synopsis :
In the 15th century, Prince Vladimir renounces God after the brutal and cruel loss of his wife. He then inherits a curse: eternal life. He becomes Dracula. Condemned to wander through the centuries, he has only one hope left: to find his lost love.

Dracula: A Love Tale
Written and directed by Luc Besson
Based on Dracula by Bram Stoker
Produced by Virginie Besson-Silla
Starring Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz, Matilda De Angelis
Music by Danny Elfman
Cinematography : Colin Wandersman
Storyboarder Artist : Eric Gandois
Production companies : EuropaCorp, LBP Productions
Distributed by SND (France)
Release date : 30 July 2025 (France)
Running time :