For a vampire movie set in modern-day England, "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" is peculiarly bloodless. But then, vampire hunger is more a metaphor than a cue for screaming, and sucking in this chilly love story, a philosophical thriller that's no less intriguing for being murkily theological and ceaselessly artsy.
"The line that separates good and evil cuts through every human heart," Steven murmurs to Anna. And that's just one of the many quotable Steven spouts to explain his dilemma: He needs nourishment from a woman's love - but he is doomed to destroy love in the process.
Steven also sustains a Russian-lit-like relationship with a detective on his trail, a man who takes his Catholicism as portentously as Steven takes his existential crisis. Through all the agony and ecstasy, Chinese-born, English-educated film-maker Po Chih Leong, working from an epigrammatic script, sustains a luxury-loving interest in the play of light on texture: Fountain pens have rarely looked more sensuous, nor vampires more like aesthetes who are never too blood-starved to appreciate fine craftsmanship.
