Corinna Kelley
Contributing Writer
Filmmaker Robert Eggers has a unique ability to use the supernatural to reflect society’s darkness. “Nosferatu” (2024) offers a striking new take on the classic tale of desire and taboo. By shifting the focus to the character Ellen, the narrative becomes one of sacrificial martyrdom, highlighting the pressure on individuals, especially women, to suppress all parts of themselves deemed undesirable by the aristocracy.
Nosferatu follows the premise of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” where a real estate agent travels to Transylvania to sell property to a mysterious, wealthy client. Meanwhile, his wife Ellen becomes haunted by a dark presence that invades her dreams, spreading a plague to those surrounding her. While the central focus of the film is on Thomas and Ellen, side characters Friedrich and Anna are crucial in revealing the societal pressures shaping their lives, acting as foils that highlight the expectations imposed.
Count Orlok evolves as a contemporary symbol of what the original Dracula represented: desire and sexual repression, toying with the line between aversion and appetence and exposing a pattern of craving what we fear. Eggers emphasizes “embracing the darkness” as a metaphor for repressing trauma, particularly sexual. Orlok’s relationship with Ellen mirrors Stockholm syndrome, where she’s torn between attraction and the inflicted physical and mental pain. Reflecting the torment of assault survivors, Orlok manifests as a predatory figure, haunting her body with shadow hands and bringing death to those around her. Isolated both physically and mentally, Ellen’s struggle reveals her split between her true self and her upheld societal image. This liminal space leaves her alone with the haunting reality that anyone she encounters is plagued by her trauma.
This film is filled with foil characters that reveal oppressive cultural realities in the presence of guilt and shame. Anna and Ellen, the only two women, display the complexities of how women are viewed both by each other and the surrounding men. Anna is seen as socially acceptable, fulfilling her role as child bearer while Ellen is demonized and treated as infectious and impure, despite revealing that she and Thomas had only kissed. This exposes the ironic double standards of a society that demands women be pure while also expecting them to fulfill any desire of their husbands, even if that means continuously bearing children.
Friedrich and Thomas are both labeled romantics — devoted husbands — yet their interactions reveal otherwise. Their rigid views of marriage force them to repress their true feelings, playing roles instead of loving their wives as they are. Friedrich envies Thomas’ ability to earn and work for what he owns, though he clings to his wealth to protect his ego, while Thomas envies the stability Friedrich was born into. In their first conversation, Thomas expresses a desire for financial stability in order to have time with his wife. Friedrich, on the other hand, brags about his children and his lustful infatuation with Anna, treating her more as a means to uphold his status than as a partner. Though Anna’s perspective is muddled, Ellen and Thomas’ relationship exposes the theme of bodily sacrifice as a replacement for love. Thomas loves Ellen, but his obsession with Friedrich’s life causes him to adopt oppressive behaviors. Early on, Ellen pleads for Thomas not to leave her, but his ego suppresses this instinct, telling her to ignore her feelings and internally doing the same to himself. Yet one can only push aside so much darkness before a shadow appears before them.
Thomas’ inability to confront Orlok reflects the social belief that women’s pain is too overwhelming, leading to its repression in society. Ellen’s anger when she discovers Thomas’ weakness solidifies her fear that Thomas only loves her when she’s docile; he’s left unable to accept or fight against her darker side — something he runs from. A key line in the film, “You could never please me as he does,” touches this theme. Ellen acknowledges that Orlok, in his possession of her, accepts all of her, while Thomas recoils in fear. Thomas’ fear of Orlok taps into a deeper societal fear of the supernatural woman, the one who menstruates but doesn’t die and has power to create life. Repressing the supernatural woman as “protection” reflects the belief that controlling her body keeps her divinity restrained, shown in Friedrich’s repeated impregnation of Anna, asserting male control over the woman. As Eggers noted, Ellen being a somnambulist (sleepwalker) symbolizes her divine insight — her primary conflict is reconciling her divine self with her human limitations.
Ellen serves as a martyr for the oppressed woman, sacrificing herself for a love that can never be fully reciprocated as it isn’t valued. Early in the film, a shadow (later revealed as Orlok) whispers that she is “not for the living,” foreshadowing her eventual death. Throughout the movie, Ellen depends on Thomas to keep her subdued, shown when they touch upon her lack of hysteria since their marriage. While she appears content before he leaves, her happiness is a result of repressed emotions; her preoccupation with him merely distracts her from all else. Every instance of sexual intimacy was a form of violence. Whenever Ellen has her fits of hysteria — physically convulsing, contorting herself brutally — it has a sexual connotation, hinting at prior sexual abuse suggested in the first scene (teenage Ellen praying for a guardian angel, only to be strangled by Orlok’s hand and possessed by him).
In Friedrich and Anna’s demise, Friedrich violates Anna’s dead body once more as a final exposé of possessive violence; not even in death can a woman’s body be safe. The sex scene between Thomas and Ellen occurs only after she is possessed and screams about Thomas’ weakness, almost as if Thomas is using sex to prove his strength and to assert his ownership over Ellen. In the final scene, Ellen sacrifices herself again, using her body to distract Orlok from their plan to kill him. This act is not only sacrificial — aimed at saving her husband and those plagued — but also the first autonomous choice she makes, unprompted by anyone else. By allowing herself to be brutalized for the sake of others, she ultimately surrenders to the darkness.
Robert Eggers’ adaptation of Nosferatu reimagines the reality of womanhood in a society that values only bodily function and control. Like the “masterless and untamable” cats, women are punished for their independence, their worth dictated by bodies, as symbolized by Orlok’s creeping hand over Ellen in moments of isolation. This society only values women in death, when they are seen as pure and innocent, much like the lilacs placed on Ellen’s deathbed. Eggers creates a beautifully disturbing, deeply enchanting film that not only honors the original but enhances its themes, weaving a modern masterpiece rich in imagery and bodily symbolism.