Vampires normally can't see their reflections in a mirror. When they can, it's truly terrible. They're becoming someone that no one, most of all themselves, can love because they're aging.
The terrible loneliness of being a vampire drives Miriam to make mates that she cannot love for eternity. In this sense, she is rather like Nadja. She must ultimately break her promise of "forever" when they become too decrepit to feed. Feeding is usually sexual act. Miriam and John generally feed on people they pick up in bars allegedly for casual sex. When Miriam is teaching Sara to feed, she picks up a male prostitute. Later, Sara's first solo kill is her husband. And when John makes his last kill, it is also someone he loves, Alice, but not in a sexual way. The hunger is for love as much as it is for blood.
Vampirism as metaphor for disease. In Dracula, vampirism is likened to syphilis. Here, it's likened to AIDS, which was something the general public was suddenly becoming aware of. In this light, it's ironic that Miriam can pass her "disease" to Sara, since lesbian unions are the least risky for the transmission of the AIDS virus.
Like Nadja and Countess Zaleska in Dracula's Daughter, Miriam is represented as especially evil not just because she's a heartless vamp, but she's also bisexual. More screen time is given to Miriam's creation of Sara as a vampire than to her creation of John. With John, the emphasis is on the broken promise. We see him in the 18th century meeting in secret with Miriam, who promises him "forever and ever." But when Miriam turns Sara, we see a protracted seduction scene, complete with an impossibly balanced mirror in the bed. This scene is the most "disturbing" in the film to some viewers, and it is certainly placed at the center of the dramatic action. It also inverts gender roles. Sara looks boyish with her short hair cut and pant suit, compared to the femme Miriam with her long hair, bright cosmetics and dresses. Yet is is Miriam who takes the lead role in the bedroom. This whole scene is designed to represent Miriam as a sexual deviant.
The movie has the quality of a music video. Tony Scott got his start as a music video director, and music videos were just starting to become mainstream. MTV (which used to play nothing but music videos) had premiered a few years earlier.
Miriam is a sort of phallic mother. She is both the giver and taker of life, and both processes are represented as equally ugly in the film. Actually the processes are shown in reverse order. We first see her reconciling John to his living death and tenderly placing him in a box to rest for all eternity with her other lovers. Then we see her creating Sara in an equally seductive and deceptive encounter. She is also similar to the goddesses of old, especially Isis whom she served. Isis is both creator and destroyer. She creates children/lovers not so much out of her great desire for them as to prevent her from being lonely. When John first discovers that he's ill, he asks Miriam if she's thought about who will be next. Women are conditioned to see themselves in relation to others, and often don't feel complete if they don't have a partner. But this cultural conditioning is often represented as some biological "need" due to "natural" feminine "weakness" or greediness. Yet women are often put in a position where they need a partner, especially a male, partner, for economic survival.
Sara is the opposite of Miriam. She is able to defeat Miriam where others have failed because she can reject her love and kill herself. This act of rebellion awakens the others who can come together for revenge on Miriam. At the end of the film, Sara too is a mother of sorts, but she is nurturing where Miriam was greedy and controlling. Is that kiss between Lalia and Sara sexual or platonic?
Other web sites of interest:
Legend Has It: The Legend of Lilith