Dracula and Valentine's Day

Last night I watched the movie Dracula (1992) on DVD. Mostly because I've finished the 5 season series of amazing that was Friday Night Lights.

I'd never really payed attention to the movie Dracula before. I had noticed that Gary Oldman was awesome and Keanu Reeves was boring. I was initially surprised to see Winona Ryder -until I remembered that she was actually a popular actress back then. And i remembered the basic plot of the movie -but somehow I had entirely missed its main point.

I'll summarize for those who haven't seen it (or those who have only seen crappy remakes of it):

Hopper (Keanu) is an Englishman engaged to Mina (Winona). Keanu is also an accountant who gets called away to handle the financial affairs of Count Dracula in Romania. In the meantime, Mina (who early on established to be very "prude" and spiritually devout) decides to stay at her rich friends house. Her friend (we'll call her Jane because I don't remember her real name) is a slut. Jane flirts with all the guys waiting for a marriage proposal from one.

Meanwhile, Hopper reaches Dracula and finds that he is 1. very old and 2. very weird. Then Dracula asks him to stay for another 2 months -just to "hangout". Shortly thereafter Hopper realizes he has basically been taken hostage. He unwittingly decides to explore the castle and gets taken captive by Dracula's 3 vampire brides. Then when Dracula brings the 3 brides a baby to feast on, Hopper realizes that these are "creatures" not people and plans his escape.

Then Dracula hops aboard a ship and heads to London to be reacquainted with Mina -who he believes is his reincarnated wife from centuries before. Upon arriving, Dracula sleeps with and drinks blood from Jane -turning her into a vampire. As Jane begins to change, one of her suitors -a doctor- calls Van Helsing to come to cure her of what he assumes is a rare illness.

Van Helsing drives a steak through her heart and chops off her head after she's seen attempting to drink the blood from a 4 year old girl. This pisses Dracula off and he starts coverting (as his younger self) with Mina and trying to win her affection. Hopper finally manages to escape and writes to Mina asking her to come to him so they can be married at once. She goes and writes Dracula -who she has strong feelings for- goodbye. They marry.

Then Van Helsing talks with Hopper and realizes Dracula is in town and they devise a plan to kill him. As they destroy Dracula's lair, he confesses his true identity to Mina, she says she loves him, he drinks her blood, she drinks his, and she begins the process of transforming into a vampire herself -which takes a couple days. Dracula then runs off and tries to make it back to his home before Hopper can reach him.

Hopper reaches him, cuts his throat and drives a steak through his chest. Fallen and wounded, Dracula is then protected by Mina who leads him into a nearby chapel. Why Dracula has a chapel -a sacred place for worshiping God- when he is repelled by the sight of the cross itself remains unknown and confusing.

Mina at last says her words of true love and Dracula begins to heal back into his young, vampire self. But then she looks at the cross and realizes her love for God is too strong to turn away from. With the will of God beside her, she picks up a steak and drives it into the heart of the man she loves. She then cuts of his head. Her love of God triumphed over her love for a man who became a creature of evil.

I somehow managed to miss that last part -aka the main point of the story. Mina had struggled with her allegiance to faith and purity when Dracula entered the seen and she became overpowered by a sense of physical longing and romantic love. Her marriage to Hopper seemed more to her like something she "must do" rather than an act of love itself. But in the end she knew that if she stayed with Dracula she would be taken down with him and have to forsake God who she had always strove to be loyal to.

It's a complex story. And it isn't often you see a movie glorify the choice of an individual to side with God over love. Most movies glorify romantic love into oblivion. Few glorify loyalty to faith and an uncompromising willingness to stay the course.

Then today at Toastmasters I heard the story of the origin of Valentine's Day:

Valentinus was a follower of Christ who was denounced for his beliefs by the Romans in the 3rd Century A.D. Valentinus refused to worship the twelve gods the Romans followed and was therefore thrown in a dungeon and planned to be put to death.

The blind daughter of the man who jailed him then started visiting with Valentinus and was told many stories of Rome and of God. The daughter told Valentinus that she wished God would return sight to her, and Valentinus said that God could only heal her if she believed in Him. She said that she did, whole heartedly. It is said that a light then filled the dungeon area and her sight was then restored.

Valentinus was executed on February 14th. Since then people have associated February 14th with St. Valentine and "Courtly Love". 

I think that love of God can lead men and women to fulfilling a life of true love and devotion they would not have otherwise been able to reach -even if it doesn't seem to have a "happy ending". And after all, if death is to be every man's ending then maybe the fact that the story lives on is the reward so that the life of the man never really "ends" but is instead and shared and remembered far beyond his own time.