The Brooklyn Rail

Bad City Nocturne: Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

In a desolate, industrial town known only as “Bad City,” a young man, Arash, is hijacking a chubby cat from a vacant lot. He passes a few strange, iconic characters who will reappear later in the film—a young boy begging for money, and a male cross-dresser—and significant locations, like a bridge over a dry ravine, full of dead bodies. A whimsical, eerie gypsy tango plays as Arash walks through deserted dirt roads with the cat in his arms.