Explanation of the ending of Nosferatu: Amor Fati

Most horror stories involve some sort of fateful transgression, such as a moment when a character goes somewhere he’s not supposed to be, reads a cursed book, plays with a forbidden box, and so on. “Nosferatu” announces that it will be a story about a fateful relationship rather than its opening moments, which see Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), a woman living in Berlin, visited in a dream (or is it?) by disembodied people. The spirit of an ancient Transylvanian vampire known as Count Orlok. Despite her fervent prayers, Elaine cannot escape Orlok’s arrival. There is a sense that Orlok and Elaine are preternaturally aware that their fates are intertwined from the beginning—Orlok notes that Elaine is “not meant for the living,” lavishing her with attention that is at once painful, disgusting, and orgasmic.

Years after this first encounter (which, again, may have been real, or perhaps a supernatural foreshadowing), Elaine and her new husband, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), are tricked into helping Orlok travel from his home country to Greater Germany. , it embodies a version of the tale that we’ve seen before in F. W. Murnau’s 1922 novel “Nosferatu” and several adaptations of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” which “Nosferatu” is based on. Both dark forces, represented by Thomas’s boss, the occultist Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), and Jade, represented by Professor Albin Eberhardt von Franz (Willem Dafoe), appear in an insurance trap intended for Ellen. To borrow a phrase from Donnie Darko, Another film about a doomed protagonist whose sacrifices saved many.

It turns out that Elaine’s destiny is to please Orlok long enough to allow the one thing that will destroy him, sunlight, to surprise him. As she and von Franz realize, this means that she must allow Orlok to have her body, in every way possible (but specifically, by plunging his fangs into her heart and sucking her blood), in order to preserve it. It is spent at dawn. She does so willingly, with the help of von Franz who takes her husband Thomas and her doctor Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) on a wild goose chase, leading them to believe they will kill Orlok in his coffin, where they end up killing Orlok. Nok is almost a vampire instead. Elaine and Orlok end their fateful relationship the way it began: as Orlock climbs into bed with Elaine, the two intertwine in a moment of dark ecstasy.