Review: The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998)

The Wisdom of Crocodiles is a film that was doomed to not do well in the United States. This UK film (titled Immortality for American audiences) grossed only $21 thousand during its entire US theater run. In comparison, Blade and John Carpenter's Vampires, which both came out in the same year, grossed $17 million and $9 million in just the US respectively. Yes, in 1998, a philosophical independent film starring a then-nearly-unknown Jude Law was really not going to appeal to an audience used to Hollywood-style action or horror. But, in the era of more thoughtful vampire films like Byzantium and Only Lovers Left Alive, how does the film hold up now?

Our film opens with Jude Law's character, Steven Grlscz, telling a story about a traumatic childhood memory involving falling from a tree. This story is told in voiceover as a group of police investigate a devastating car-crash, one where the female driver is mysteriously is lacking in blood.

It doesn't take much of his blasé expression for the audience to assume that Steven is the reason for both the woman's death and the missing blood. It also turns out that the female driver was Steven's fiancee... which just makes his lack of caring all the more damning.

"Don't mind me.
I'm just completely un-bothered by my lover's corpse..."

However, we don't spend much time on the past, as Steven immediately launches into his next conquest. We learn that Steven goes after women who are vulnerable in one way or another (suicidal, asthmatic, ill, or otherwise fragile), but rather than just attacking them like most cinematic vampires, he starts a relationship with them. He gives them his phone number, draws them pictures, takes them out to dinner, listens to their problems, and just generally acts like THE BEST BOYFRIEND EVER. As one woman remarks in the film, "He's absolutely perfect."

However, this only lasts so long: when the relationship gets really serious, the vampire truly emerges and Steven kills the girl he has been seeing.

Well, at least he didn't break up via text message...

The majority of the film focuses on two plot lines: Steven pursuing and dating a structural engineer named Anna, and a police detective investigating two of the mysterious deaths surrounding Steven.

In many films, either plot line would create a suspenseful and tense tone. After all, Steven is a killer and a monster; the question of when he will try to kill Anna or how the police might discover what he is would keep us on the edge of our seats in other films. But The Wisdom of Crocodiles takes a different approach. The tone of the film is mostly slow and philosophical; for every moment of tense expectation, there are long speeches about human psychology, morality, emotions, and human relationships.

"Oh, you're trying to arrest me for murder? I have a better idea:
let's chat about the philosophy of good and evil for 15 minutes..."

One recurring conversation (and one which gives the film its name) is about the "three part human mind." Steven tells a story about a conversation he had with a neurologist once about how the human mind is actually three minds: the conscious human mind, the mammalian mind, and the reptilian mind. Steven uses the specific example that, deep in our minds, we are not just thinking as humans but also as "horses and crocodiles." This story is told and referenced a few times, both by Steven and then later by Anna. At one point, Anna tells this story to Steven:

I stole this watch when I was fourteen. I had gone to the store with my mother and when I saw it I wanted it. It was the only thing I could think about. I wanted it so much I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. So one day when I went to pick up some flint for my father's lighter, the owners back was turned, I picked it up and put it in my pocket. The thing was I had the money. Today I still do not know why I could not bare to pay for it. So tell me, was that the horse or the crocodile?

 What you may notice about this speech is that it has no obvious connections to vampires. Like The Addiction and Only Lovers Left Alive, The Wisdom of Crocodiles seems more interested in what the vampire and the vampire's perspective can say about humanity than about the supernatural story itself.

That doesn't mean The Wisdom of Crocodiles doesn't add anything to the vampire mythos though. It turns out that Jude Law's vampire doesn't feed on just blood: he feeds on emotions. At one point, Steven explains: "I need blood. I need the love in [the blood]... Emotions are things. Your blood carries every emotion it's possible to feel. Love is what I feed on, what I eat." But if that love is "tainted," then Steven doesn't stay healthy. When we first see Steven feed on a woman, he immediately passes an icicle-like kidney stone (yuck), which he catalogs in a box next to each woman's name.

You know, most people just keep old photos...

In a notebook, he also keeps track of the relationship, ending each entry with an emotion word such as "rage," "disappointment," or "despair."

In his cover identity, Steven is a medical researcher, at one point explaining to Anna that he is currently researching how the body creates crystals, like kidney stones, in response to extreme emotions. He shows her a tray of crystals and says that each one could be called simply "rage, resentment, malice, disappointment, [and] despair." Thus, we're supposed to glean, when Steven eats "tainted" blood, his body makes immediate vampire-icicle-kidney-stones. Which he keeps. In a box.

Well that's............................... different.

Steven's ultimate goal, it is soon explained, is to find a love free of these tainted emotions; Steven is searching for a perfect, "pure" love that will make him healthy and whole. Besides avoiding the pain, he thinks that his blood cravings and mortality will end "if I can get the right woman to love me perfectly."

"You just didn't love me enough."

This concept is certainly an interesting addition to vampire mythology, and it also transforms Steven's character into more than just a supernatural creature. Instead, he can be a metaphor for so many humans who search for what they think will make them happy and whole, all while not caring who they deceive or prey on.

The metaphor also makes an interesting point about love and pain; humans are constantly ending relationships or making decisions within relationships in order to avoid feelings of hurt and pain. The search for any loving relationship without pain is an impossible one, something which becomes more and more obvious throughout Steven's relationship with Anna.

Interestingly, the only "real" and authentic relationship that Steven seems to foster in the film (the only one not ultimately connected to his quest for non-kidney-stone immortality) is one with the police detective. Though the detective wants to find evidence against Steven, along the way Steven saves his life, and they proceed to discuss philosophy, the detective's love for his wife, and whether or not lying is always bad for relationships. Steven also lets dangerously confessional details slip out, sometimes barely covering these confessions up with bashfulness or self-deprecation. When the detective informs Steven that he is no longer a suspect in the murders, Steven seems visibly disappointed. Without the investigation, this outlet for human connection without the quest for blood is gone. It's an interesting and surprising aspect of the film.

Ultimately, though, the metaphor in The Wisdom of Crocodiles is less compelling than many other vampire art films. The metaphor can often feel convoluted, making the long speeches and philosophical musings tedious at times. The film-making and cinematography is also less stylized in comparison to films like The Addiction and Only Lovers Left Alive, making the movie visually less interesting to watch as well. By the time the film ended, I nodded and felt mostly satisfied with my movie-watching experience, but I wasn't especially in awe or blown away.

Overall, The Wisdom of Crocodiles is a decent "art" vampire movie that probably deserved better, but it's not the very best of its kind. If you like the slower, more musing style of vampire film, you'll find a lot to like here, but don't expect to fall in love "perfectly." As the movie suggests, there's probably no such thing.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 bites