History, man... Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 43, Day Four

In my part of the media when we’re not slapping you in the face with a paywall or clogging your smart phone with “behaviourally targeted” advertising, we aim for engaging and valuable content. Today at the Giornate was a high-value one with so many films, long and so short you could call them photographs. In short, Peak Pordenone with surprise after surprise and a sense of incredulity about what we had just seen, that it even exists let alone a century down the line. Blessed are the archivists and the programmers, the projectionists and the people who help you down the stairs in the Teatro Verdi.

 

 

Moxov Qiz [The Leper] (1928) with Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov

 

I’m starting again in Uzbekistan with an outstanding film – the best of the strand so far – and a powerful tale about the treatment of women in parts of the Muslim community in the early days of the last century – thereby also highlighting the corruption of the Tsarist regime. This would not be the first touch with issues that remain of modern concerns on today’s programme.

 

Directed by Oleg Frelikh this was based on a treatment by Lolakhan Saifullina (who co-wrote The Second Wife) of a novel by French author Ferdinand Duchêne, a magistrate in Algeria, where he observed the struggle between traditional life and modernity. A young woman, Tyllia-Oi (Ra Messerer, who was also in The Second Wife) marries a wealthy merchant Said-Vali (Grigol Chechelashvili) and soon falls foul of his temper by wearing the Russian style of clothes he favours rather than traditional dress – “don’t forget you’re a Muslim…”.

 

The local Russian authorities are all in the deep pockets of her husband but he still has reason to fear officer Igor Karonin (Andrei Fait who was also in Battleship Potemkin (1925) and much more) who intercepts a message for help from Tyllia-Oi and uses it to blackmail her into sexual favours. He provides some measure of protection for her but after he is sent to a new station in Moscow, she shows too much emotion to her husband when he breaks the news and he uncovers her affair.

 

Ra Messerer

His retaliation is savage and, branded am adulteress and, even though her father makes a complaint about her abuse, the Russians are easily bought off and won’t go against the wishes of the religious court which finds her guilty under Sharia law. She must return to her father who must give Said-Vali a full refund on her dowry… but the highest price is paid in the disgrace and the woman must bear full responsibility.

 

Frelikh directs with subtlety and grace even with this most disheartening story and there are plenty of compositions showing the location and nature as well as the way of life. The transitions between shots are immaculate and the cinematography of Vladimir Dobrzhanskii is outstanding. There was certainly a propogandist agenda to this film but given the source material – based on experience of North Africa – this kind of story is entirely possible in the culture of the time. . Forgetting religion, how many women live like this still?

 

Any country would be proud to have this film as part of their cultural history and the accompaniment from Abror Zufarov and Sobirjon Tuyokov was at once so evocative of their country as well as in perfect tune with this sad and sobering film, one that deserves wider exposure and I hope it gets a screening in the UK soon.

 

The Land of Promise (1924) with José María Serralde Ruiz

 

Directed by Ya’acov Ben Dov, this was another film with propagandist purpose and a “straight” documentary covering the “repopulation” (words can’t be careful enough…) of the land of Palestine by Jewish settlers in the years up to 1924. The initial screening in the UK was followed by a lecture by Leonard Stein of the World Zionist Organization, who claimed that prior to the Balfour Declaration, “Palestine had become a desolate country... a miserable swamp.” (Daily Telegraph, 22^nd December 1924) and it’s one repeated in the film.

 

The arguments against and for this are there for all to research. The screening is a call to make ourselves better informed without rushing to judgement – this is what a trained historian is supposed to say. As a film it is very well made and not dissimilar to Russian works of the period in presenting the results of collaboration for the cause.

 

The accompaniment from José María Serralde Ruiz was well played by conveyed a level of anger that, for me, distracted from the viewing experience. It’s up to the viewers to be historical in their interpretation of this source material and the rights and wrongs of the document, the aims of Zionism and rights to land. If any film encapsulated the significance of cinema as a means of historical record then it’s this one.

 

And yes, Balfour has a lot to answer for but his government were shooting my great grandfather’s comrades in the streets of Liverpool a little over a decade before this during the Transport Strike.

 

Le Hugenot (1909) with Donald Sosin and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

 

This short film will have been programmed to illustrate another key factor about the movement of people as Louis Feuillade’s short feature showed the religious persecution of the Huguenots in the 16^th Century including The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 with modern estimates of the numbers killed ranging from 5-30,000. Whilst the film finishes in a call for peace before God, tens of thousands fled France for protestant countries such as England and via boat.

 

The Pride of the Clan (1917) with Donald Sosin and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

 

It was time for some fun and to marvel again at the epic skillset of Mary the 1st here directed by the genius Maurice Tourneur. Mary is Marget MacTavish who takes over as Chieftain after her father drowns at sea. She’s about to marry Jamie Campbell (Matt Moore) and there’s some silliness with couples in the clan biting sixpence in half so they can hang it around each other’s necks – HG Wells should have sued! But it’s all in fun even when Jamie is revealed to be of noble birth and his birth mother tries to sweep him away to polite society.

 

Well, you know Mary, d’yea think she’ll allow that the noo?

 

Excellent locations from Tourneur create a genuinely Caledonian feel and Elizabeth-Jane’s harp added further Celtic magic along with Donald Sosin’s lines crashing like so many waves against the granite cliffs of this hitherto unknown southern Hebridean island. Great fun!

 

Folly of Vanity (1924), with Philip Carli

 

Once again we were left on a high with this inventive film about the early married life of Alice and Robert Farnsworth as played by the mighty Billie Dove and Jack Mulhall in the style of a proto-screwball comedy. They’ve never had an argument in, oh, six months or so of marriage until Alice buys some fake pearls and wants to go to a party hosted by Mr (John St. Polis) and Mrs Ridgeway (Betty Blythe with the vamp-ometer set to kill!). Mr R has a famous pearl collection and these parties have a reputation for being, louche…

 

They go, they row as Mrs R tries to tempt Robert as her Mr drops temptation round Alice’s neck with a pearl necklace so she can rekindle its lost lustre… There’s a floor show at the party that wouldn’t be out of place at the Moulin Rouge and the charm continues when the guests are invited to the Ridgeways yacht/ocean liner with the couple intent of achieving both their targets.

 

So far so pre-code and boy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet as Alice falls overboard and into the wildest party in the undersea empire of Poseidon. Henry Otto directed this green-tinted gratuity and he directed the steamy heck out of it with more mermaids than there are stars in MGM and an eye-poppin’ amount of flesh on view. The fact that England’s finest, Maurice Elvey directed the other parts of the film makes this all the more shocking, mind you, he’d be filming in Blackpool a few years later for Hindle Wakes and, well, there’s stuff goes on there that also blows the mind!

 

Lulu McGrath

Also seen:

 

Pre-Cousteau underwater adventures including J. Ernest Williamson’s Wonders of the Sea (1922) which seemed to be mostly Lulu McGrath in a swimming costume floating past the coral and angel fish. Neil Brand accompanied in fine style, resolve of steel not to musically quote Yellow Submarine.

 

Columbian films including Garras de Oro (1927) which was essentially an astonishing attack on Teddy Roosevelt’s failed attempt to enable Panamanian separatists to put the canal in more controllable hands. Columbia wins and Uncle Sam takes a bloody nose. How often does this happen. More history and suitably learned accompaniment for this spy thriller from Stephen Horne.

 

Then we had Feminist Fragments 2. Queer Eyes, Loose Lips and Detachable Limbs which was another superb collection of rare Nasty Women grooves including pro-wrestling, Alice Guy’s Les Fredaines de Pierrette (1900) and films that generally showed a surprising amount of feminist feeling or nuanced non-hetero-normative expression. There was also Queen Lyda Borelli the 1^st as St Barbara the patron saint of explosives and she does exactly what it says on the pack of dynamite! Also, watch out for roller skates, they’re dangerous!

 

 

What's in the box Lyda?

 

PS I skipped Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book (DK 1920) and am of course sorry for that but I had a crisis in Croydon to deal with remotely. And no, that’s not code for something else…