Bohemian rhapsody. The Organist at St. Vitus' Cathedral (1929), with Maud Nelissen, Bonn Silent Film Festival 1924

 

This is a delightful film that bears many hallmarks of late silent film technique all set against the beguiling backdrop of Prague and was streamed online with fluid magically-real accompaniment from Maud Nelissen who has provided the same service at previous screenings for San Francisco last year and HippFest this March. It was only celebrated Czech director, Martin Frič’s second feature film but already he seems entirely on top of storytelling, performance and pacing… The story is a grower that shocks us early on and then gradually winds up – boiling the audience frog – leaving us with a genuinely anxious closing ten minutes as we hope that redemption and kindness will prevail in a work that has already shown that this is hardly a guarantee. This is not Hollywood after all.

 

The film is a symphony of gothic Prague with sumptuous views across the largely still extant medieval city, a masterpiece of Bohemian style with the “City of a Hundred Spires” on view in languorous location shots that almost use the performers as a means of establishing scale. Most spectacular of all is the cathedral which, built over many centuries on an outcrop alongside the castle complex, still looms over the city to this day.

 

Having opened with rapturous views and ringing bells, we understand the pure glory the organist must feel as he moves from his humble house in the ancient wooden streets every day to play at the cathedral. Karel Hašler plays the otherwise unnamed Organist and gives an absorbing and powerful performance as you might expect given his standing as not only an actor but also as a director both on screen and on-stage, writer, musician, performer of many styles since his debut in 1897. His is the face that could sink a thousand ships; intense, brooding and yet strangely vulnerable and as with the gothic edifice that gives his life so much meaning, he too lives the most structured of lives, his discipline and artistic purpose the rigid keystones of enigmatic yet pure artistic endeavour and faith.

 

Karel Hašler

Into this life comes a very old friend and chaos threatens his very existence. Appearing at his door on one rain-sodden evening the old man is surprised to find a man (Otto Zahrádka) he believed imprisoned on his door. He invites him in but not before local chancer and part-time extortionist Josef Falk – another very fine performance from Ladislav H. Struna who shares Hašler’s brooding protean qualities and plays with a very modern style; in this case presenting as threatening but also with his essential humanity ever present, a sophisticated approach and one that enriches the narrative no end.

 

The Organists old pal is at his wit’s end with no future save incarceration and he has escaped purely to hand over what money he has along with a note to his daughter Klára (Suzanne Marwille) who knows not of his crimes and is a nun… but not without a purpose in this context. After handing over his last worldly goods the man shoots himself and drops to the floor dead; the Organist in shock hides his body in the basement but only after the watching Falk has interceded sensing opportunity and stolen the old man’s letter as collateral for bribing the shocked old man.

 

The Organist goes to tell Klára the news but he cannot bring himself to tell her of her father’s self slaughter and hands over the money leaving her alone with her thoughts. Klára’s grief makes her leave the monastery and she goes to live with the Organist, cleaning up his house and winning him over: she has apparently exchanged one Father, possibly two, for another and the two form a new bond as she re-enters the secular world.

 

Suzanne Marwille

Now, in these kinds of circumstances, there’s usually a rich-boy painter spotting supernatural beauty with eagle eyes and a ready easel and so it proves with Ivan (Oscar Marion) who first spots Klára's beauty as he stands on his horse staring at her in eth grounds of the monastery and is delighted to find her in the twisty gothic streets he is painting near the Cathedral. Now, if the Organist and the Extortionist are portrayed in forceful naturalistic ways, the two potential lovers are – initially at least – more idealised, she intense grace and supernatural longing and he almost comedic in his lustful and artistic ways. Both represent archetypes and objects of desire whether as potential lovers but also as pure idealists who will have to face cruel reality at some point.

 

This process happens gently at first and there’s a lovely sequence when Klára goes shopping and Ivan sets off in pursuit. She buys a still-wriggling fish from a vendor as he loiters with artistic intent and when she drops it on her way home, he struggles to pick up the poor wriggling creature but manages to take it back to her house, keenly expecting some romantic reward.

 

From this point onwards though, the film turns darker as the Organist’s attempt to protect the young woman is threatened by Falk’s increasingly desperate attempts to extract money from him. Will new love save the day or is the Organist doomed by his own decency especially after an altercation with Falk leaves his right hand paralysed and he can no longer play the music that is his life… If it were German or especially French, the film might take a different course but you’ll have to see it for yourself for the genuinely tense closing sequence and, good luck!

Bridges as well as towers in Prague

I must mention the cinematography of Jaroslav Blažek who not only captures the city but also the intricate workings of the performers in frequent close-ups, bits of Dreyer here and Germans too in the darkened, naturally lit street scenes. There’s also frequent overlays showing the inner conflicts, the bells clanging over the city in faith and hope and transitions from closed to open spaces that would be breath-taking on the big screen.

 

The form also benefits from Maud Nelissen’s melodic and subtle accompaniment that switched effortlessly between the diegetic sounds of the organ and the narrative emotions we’re all experiencing “outside of the film”. She is very good at getting to the heart of a film like this and has scale as well as intricate emotionalism to flavour the film’s approach.

 

All in all, a cracking start to this year’s viewing of Bonn online - details here, be quick only days to go, the streaming continues until 21st August and films only stay online for three days, enjoy them whilst you can! Once again I failed to make time to go in persona nd once again I can only thank the Festival for streaming some of the content. A wonderful film, I hope to see it in the celluloid soon!!

Oscar Marion

Wakes Wednesday… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day Five

Three piers, The Golden Mile, The Big Dipper, trams, a Tower to rival Paris, arcades and donkeys; even in it’s dotage Blackpool still defiantly breaks more hearts than any other UK seaside resort but, as we saw tonight, Llandudno’s subtle charms can compromise even the most careful girl. For, climbing the Great Orme, near the still-extant Victorian pier and staying at the Grand Hotel, where I worked two summer seasons as a student, Fanny Hawthorn risked her future with some posh fella on the lookout for more than fresh air and fun.

 

Maurice Elvey told the BFI in 1949 that Hindle Wakes was “the greatest play ever written” and one of the films he most enjoyed making and, in fact, he was so keen on Stanley Houghton’s play that he made it twice. This is more than just a “Lancashire film for Lancashire people” as the publicity had it, this was a liberating tale for all at a time of increasing class awareness and the growth of unions and the Labour Party. Houghton’s play was written just a year after the Liverpool general transport strike which, apart from causing Home Secretary Winston Churchill to send troops and a battle cruiser up the Mersey, did so much for union membership. My grandfather was a tram driver who withdrew his labour for the strike during which two men were shot dead and hundreds injured by the army.

 

Elvey had produced plays by Chekov, Strindberg, Ibsen and he was a trade unionist who would have identified with the play’s message of working-class independence. He also wanted naturalism in the film and both Estelle Brody and Peggy Carlisle spent time in a mill to learn how to properly look like they were doing the work and to understand the culture, Peggy was from Liverpool and would have known Blackpool well but Estelle was an American: welcome to the real Playground of the World!

 

Watching this new BFI 35mm print – a full restoration is apparently ongoing – the film stands out as one of the major works of British silent cinema because of the expertise with which Elvey controls character and the narrative. It may be a bit slow-paced for modern viewers but everything is there to serve a purpose and every character will have their moments.

 

Fanny and Mary – Peggy’s haircut is so darn sharp! – feel like modern women all the more surprising given the date of their origin, years before they could vote. The fact that Fanny feels confident enough to exert her right to independence against all odds, is one of the great feminist statements of British silent film. I love her strength and sass as she refuses to let the situation of her dalliance with Allan Jeffcote (John Stuart) and the instant respect from mill-owner Nathaniel Jeffcote (a very fine showing from Norman McKinnel) who recognises someone with drive and grit like himself. She may be a bonny lass Mr Jeffcote but she’s far too good for your Alan!

 

Similarly, Fanny’s parents are mini masterpieces of characterisation with Humberston Wright as her intelligent yet timid father and Mary Ault as her firebrand of a mother who eye’s her daughter’s transgression as an opportunity to be exploited and just will not be silenced about it, if only there was an audio recording of her improvisations! Mouth almighty as they’d say in Lanky!

John Stuart, Humberston Wright, Peggy Carlisle and Estelle Brody

The sequences in Blackpool are outstanding especially the footage of the Big Dipper – show the restoration in the BFI IMAX and there’ll be folk passing out at that.

 

It’s a film that strengthens every time I see it and given the politics of 1926-7 as well as 1912, it is simply a remarkable statement about ordinary people’s right to self-determination. Away with the old morality and guilt, time to stand up and play a bigger part.

 

The score was composed and conducted by Maud Nelissen and performed live by Daphne Balvers (soprano & alto sax), Lucio Degani (violin), Francesco Ferrarini (cello), Rombout Stoffers (percussions & accordion) as well Maud Nelissen on piano. In the catalogue she talks of how she researched locations and culture for the film, immersing herself in mill town history and the times of the annual wakes weeks when t’ whole mill shut down and the workers went off together in search of precious joy. On the evidence of this lovely, soulful score she’s now an honorary Lassie from Lancashire.

This morning there was more Harry Piel serving up top-notch entertainment with Der Mann Ohne Nerven (1924) in which der mann himself plays without fear and spends a good portion of the action attempting to rescue the beautiful damsel Aud Egede Christensen (future Mrs Piel, Dary Holm) from a runaway balloon flying high over Paris bumping into church spires and industrial chimneys. All starts with a bundle of meta-confusion with story is about a famous novelist and his new book, Der Mann Ohne Nerven which, it seems to me, suddenly takes to life as characters start to pursue the man without fear or perhaps that’s the book we’re experiencing.

 

Plot, who cares, it’s Harry’s World and we’re just watching it.

 

Mr Neil Brand accompanied as fearlessly as Harry, no safety net and with suspended chords chasing his balloonatic pursuit across the sky.

  

Jaque Catelain modelling the latest in lounge wear

More gorgeous Sonia Delaunay design next with Marcel L’Herbier’s Le Vertige (1926) (also entitled The Living Image but literally Vertigo, with elements of Hitchcock’s later film of the same title as Stephen Horne pointed out) one of his major films I’ve not seen and quite possibly one of Jaque Catelain’s best performances, as a baby-faced Ivan Mosjoukine as someone termed him. He plays two parts, a young Russian army officer who is killed by General Svirsky (Roger Karl) the horrendous husband of his lover Natacha (Emmy Lynn).

 

After the Revolution to couple relocate to Nic and taking a trip to Paris Natacha sees a young man, Henri de Cassel (Jaque Catelain again) who looks exactly like her dead lover. Stranger and stranger with some spectacular design, old jealousies are revived and history begins to repeat itself.

 

Stephen Horne supplied uncannily stylish accompaniment.

 

Eugen Klöpfer tracking Aud Egede-Nissen

I’ve also managed to avoid seeing Die Strasse (1923) another of the canon revisited stream which was a digital restoration with reconstructed titles and a mix of sources. Karl Grune’s film is indeed impressive in terms of cinematic technique as well as its pointedly political take on German life encapsulated on one street.

 

There’s a bored middle-aged man who definitely doesn’t work in the publishing industry (Eugen Klöpfer) who sets out for a walk on the wild side of his street, twirling his umbrella and feigning interest in shop windows* as he approaches the local sex workers. There’s some amusing interplay between one such woman (Aud Egede-Nissen) and this nervy punter, a dance she’s played many times before. As we later find out, she shares a house with a small child and a blind man played by the protean Max Schreck; two vulnerable people who exist in the criminal uncertainties of this low life.

 

The man finally bucks up the courage to follow the woman into a night club where his seduction and exploitation can be controlled, it’s a tense voyage into the underworld, with a dreamlike quality that doesn’t make the realities being dramatized any less pitiful.

 

Partners in crime Günter Buchwald (violin and piano) and Frank Bockius (hitting things) accompanied in fine style with so many hints of contemporary club anthems, Ain’t She Sweet being ironically right on point!

Obligatory banging on about Liverpool... 

*In one of the shop windows he passes by there’s an advert for The White Star Line including Liverpool as one of the destinations. The White Star offices still stands in Liverpool as does The White Star public house just off Mathew Street and The Cavern were fifty years after Fanny and Mary, girls went for a good time increasingly on their terms.

The wifi's decent as well...

Liverpool has some fabulous architecture.

Bruce Fairbanks? The Man from Kangaroo (AU 1920), with Mauro Colombis, Le Giornate 40th Edition Streaming, Day Two

Rex “Snowy” Baker doesn’t know who you are but he has a particular set of skills that mean he will find you and he will win you over. His rugged features hide a winning smile and his athleticism counterbalances perfectly with his character’s piety especially as, despite the frock, he’s just a normal bloke. Fortunes are made on such combinations and you can see why he had a run of successful films in Australia with this being the third of five.

In the UK and USA this film was known as The Better Man and Snowy is exactly that whether he’s intervening in stopping two kids fighting and then showing them how to fight properly or diving into fast-moving water to save another. Not all superheroes wear capes, some have dog collars and Snowy plays John Harland, a former world-class athlete who now hides his physicality under the robes of priesthood. Baker excelled a sport, ALL sport… which is probably why he “only” got a silver at the ‘08 London Olympics (in boxing natch). He won New South Wales titles at swimming as well as boxing championships while still a teenager, and also excelled at rugby (two test series for Australia vs GB) and… horsemanship, water polo, running, rowing and cricket!  Strewth, all this reminds me of my regular humiliations playing sport with the Maxwell Boys from Adelaide… but another time!

Ah, but why was Mr White nicknamed "Snowy" I hear you ask?

There’s one spectacular stunt when he’s chasing a man whose just robbed a grand from a businessman, he’s up on a bridge looking down and jumps down onto a carriage and then again onto a horse and cart before hitting the ground running and bringing his man to ground. Truly this is the Aussie Fairbanks, call him "Bruce" if you will. He’s also a precursor of Johnny Weissmuller with a lengthy sequence showing him make a variety of outstanding dives into a billabong, surely the most gratuitous use of such a location since Jenny Agutter went for a dip in Walkabout, albeit in a different way.

Muriel Hammond (American actress Agnes Vernon) would disagree though as she looks on admiringly and ties his clothes up so he takes longer to get changed from his wet swimming cosy. Muriel is the ward of one nasty piece of work called Martin Giles (Charles Villiers) who has embezzled her father’s money and wants to marry her on the grounds that a wife can’t testify against her husband. He gets Harland reassigned from Kangaroo so he can have his evil way un-opposed but the Lord moves in mysterious ways fella and you’re about to find out…

Agnes Vernon and Rex "Snowy" White

There’s a lot packed in this film and as the action moves on from quiet Kangaroo, John gets involved in saving a businessman, Mr Greythorn, from a mugging and, through him, gets the chance to spread the Holy word in Kalmaroo, a town without a chapel. The local lads, led by proper wrong ‘un Black Jack Braggan (Wilfred Lucas) who just happens to be the foreman on Muriel’s family farm, where he helps the wicked Giles strip the assets and cattle.

From here on it’s all a bit Hells Hinges with immovable forces about to collide with irresistible objects as John must deal with Black Jack and Muriel’s impression that he ran out on her. It’s an action-packed finale with excellent stunts and lots of horses; you can’t ask for more! It’s a tremendously likable film, well directed by Wilfred Lucas, with some top-notch intertitles from Syd Nicholls – very witty and covering a lot of complex narrative with deft phrasing.

Accompanist Mauro Colombis had some wonderful fun with this film with spritely lines illustrating the daring do, the suspense and the thrills of the great outback. As they say in Aus, “go you good thing!”

An example of Syd Nichol's excellent work!

Before our trip Down Under, there were five short films from the Cineteca del Friuli mostly Italian and all showing the diversity of subject matter pre-war. Accompaniment was provided by Maud Nelissen who played with impressively assured variety for, as briefs go, there’s few more eclectic challenges for improvisation.

The first three films came from the Ambrosio Studios in Turin and in the second, Cenerentola/ A Modern Cinderella (IT 1913), we see behind the scenes as the Cinders in question, Silvietta, played by Fernanda Negri-Pouget, who was in the 1913 epic The Last Days of Pompeii amongst other things, is taken to the studios for an audition. It’s always fascinating to see behind the camera at a silent studio and whilst the film overall is incomplete, this is precious footage. Silvietta gets the role and a star is born with all the usual ramifications…

Fernanda Negri-Pouget - white dress, black hair - on stage at Ambrosio

The first film Le Bolle di Sapone/ Soap Bubbles (IT 1911), features the studio’s youngest star, Maria Bay – born in 1905 – as a wicked little boy intent on kicking walking sticks from old ladies and generally being disgraceful. He eventually learns his lesson after stealing a pipe blowing soap bubbles and seeing visions of the consequences of his actions. There’s remarkable technical control here with each bubble followed down in close up before the vision of the boy’s tormented victim appears inside the soap, spiralling to her doom unless he can change and his evil intentions, just like his dreams, can fade and die…

The camera tracks a blown bubble than another image is superimposed...

Years before Coke Ennyday (a deranged Douglas Fairbanks) faced his mystery of the leaping fish, the French, in the form of writer/director Roméo Bosetti, were taking a comic look at chasing the dragon in Bigorno Fume L’Opium (FR 1914). Filmed near Nice it shows the reaction of a petit bourgeois family to presents from their friend Augusto the Explorer on his return from the East. René Lantini (Bigorno) goes as over the top as he has visions of ancient worlds and trashes the living room. Then, as now kids, just say no.

As Gods to wanton Spiders are we Flies to the Boys is broadly what we’re addressing with the clever animation La Mosca a il Ragno/ The Spider and the Fly (IT 1913). A young boy pulls the wings off the titular insect and it is left to fend for itself, six legs vs eight, as the house spider moves in. No spoilers but flies are amazingly resourceful and quite string for their size. I can only refer the unknown director and writer, Émile Vardannes, to the message of the previous film.

René Lantini listens to early Pink Floyd, probably...

Lastly there was a fun two-reeler, Il Giglio Nero/The Black Lilly (IT 1913) no doubt inspired by the French crime serials such as Fantômas and Zigomar – detective fiction in general, the Marvel superheroes of their day and beyond as the Sherlock Holmes Extended Universe attests. The director is unknown but we do know the two leading players Augusto Mastripietri as the gang leader, alias Mr. Forti, and Attilio D’Anversa as Detective Sereni his implacable foe.

All the classic cars are played, fast cars, pretty damsels in distress, secret liars, hidden passageways, relentless thievery and, well, lost more “wicked boys” who, in this case, will take more than soap to burst their bubble!

Le Giornate 40 is coming fast and furious, these two are still viewable for a few more hours… time for Day Three – all details here on their website.

Gang culture in The Black Lilly...

Weimar superstar… Christian Wahnschaffe (1919-21), with Stephen Horne, Berlinale 68 (Part Two)

Day three of the festival and it was back to the gorgeous Zeughkino for perhaps the major restoration, two films that were once considered lost and which had been painstakingly reconstructed over a two-year period… it was time for Conrad Veidt, a genuine Weimar superstar!

Directed by Urban Gad, the former Mr Asta Nielsen, the films were quite different with the first a sprawling tale of political subversion, nihilist revolutionaries on the prowl and the second a simpler, more entertaining tale of social injustice. We saw Connie the fashion plate, the feline sensitive, the noble hero, the Proteus - unfurling those steely limbs; defying the logic of form and substance… and always, always, carrying unconscious women.

Christian Wahnschaffe, Teil 1: Weltbrand (World Afire) (1919)

“You sacrifice thousands of souls in your desire for adoration…”

World Afire is still incomplete and whilst titles explained missing parts of the plot there were still some narrative jumps in a story loaded with character and sub-plots. Christian Wahnschaffe is the spoiled son of a wealthy industrialist whose eyes are opened to the struggles below his income bracket through his relations with a stunning dancer Eva Sorrel (Lillebil Ibsen) and her associate, a Russian Nihilist called Iwan Becker (Fritz Kortner, wide-eyed and febrile even without Lulu to push him through the gears…).

Lillebil Ibsen and Leopold von Ledebur

Eva is introduced with a great high-angled shot from Gad and his cinematographer Max Lutze who also perform similar service for the high-angled cheekbones of Herr Veidt. It’s Conrad the clothes horse with one combination of leather waistcoat and plaid jodhpurs being especially striking and we also see the Veidt ribs through a revealing satin dressing-gown – deliberate decadence setting him at the extremes of a long journey.

Christian fixates on Eva and drives his poor wife to misery as we meet the other players in Eva’s life Cardillac (Hermann Vallentin) a high-stakes investor and her step-father, the crippled dancer who made Eva dance over knives to succeed where he failed. It’s all very baroque – Eva’s father is introduced with a montage of naked dancers circling over his head – and as we skip from Paris to Russia the mood shifts.

Eva has attracted the interest of the Russian Grand Duke (Leopold von Ledebur) and the head of his secret police (Josef Peterhans) intercepts a secret document she has been hiding for Becker on behalf of the revolutionaries… As a revolution clearly very much like the one in 1905 gathers pace, Christian and Becker try to win them back.

The plot is considerably more convoluted than this of course but overall the film is a visually sumptuous melodrama incorporating fashion, dance and “nihilism”. But this was really only the set-up for Christain Wahnschaffe, the punch-line was to follow…

The Nihilists make secret plans

Christian Wahnschaffe, Teil 2: Die Flucht aus dem goldenen Kerker/ The Escape from the Golden Prison (1921)

The second “part” features far fewer characters and much more Veidt with a plot as taught as the sinews in the actor’s steely arms. This time Christian becomes drawn into the world of the poor by compassion and love although everyone’s motivations are at one time or another questionable, even Ruth (Rose Müller) the angel of the slums: wealth corrupts and Ruth is right when she tells Christian that “…your money sends people down the wrong path.”

Christian lives in splendour and is bored to tears at one of his own parties: tired of these “ceaseless revels”. His pal Amadeus Voß (Ernst Pröckl) suggests some slumming and takes him down to a dive bar well past the wrong side of the tracks. The denizens are drunk and feisty, and the posh boys cover up their bow-ties and try to look cool. It’s far too much for Christian though when a painter/pimp, Niels Heinrich (the excellent Werner Krauß) starts beating up his girl Karen (Esther Hagan). The violence is believably brutal from both actors – Krauß is so thoroughly menacing – that the intervention of Veidt’s character can’t come soon enough.

Christian protected by Ruth

Christian takes Karen to a hotel and she is naturally confused by Christian’s charity – good emoting from Esther Hagen. Sadly, they have been followed by Niels and so any relief will be short-lived…

Back in his mansion, Christian works out by boxing, allowing Veidt to show some impressive combinations, and thinks through what he should do. “The most exhausting work a man can do is nothing…” and spurred on he once again must rescue Karen on finding her being assaulted by Niels. Carrying her away from the hotel and back to her mother’s apartment, he passes through dozens of children lining the rickety stairways of their slum.

Here he meets the saintly Ruth who has devoted her life to helping and is transfixed by her example and, naturally, her smile. He offers his wallet, but she tells him to think harder. Voß cannot understand his friend: “… why are you here? Are you attracted by poverty?” no, replies Christian, “but I hate wealth”.

He follows this up by liquidating his assets and, sixty years before the KLF, sets flame to his fortune, causing a riot in the tenement. But there is one asset he wants to share and he gives his mother’s pearls to Ruth an act that does not go un-noticed and one thing leads to another, leads to a murder and more. Given the hyperinflation of this period – wheelbarrows of notes were required to buy groceries – this fascination with wealth and currency speaks for itself but we are also in the time when genuine alternatives to capitalism were closer to the mainstream. Whatever goes around…

Greed.

On the Zeughkino’s Steinway, Stephen Horne was on top form and, having played the double the day before, was all over the narrative and emotion with multi-tasked inspiration. The closing passage to the second film was spectacular with a stunned audience hanging on the final, devastating, suspended notes and cinema staff putting in urgent calls to the piano tuner (possibly)… a fitting climax for that astonishing ending.

Die Unehelichen/Children of no Importance/Illegitimate Children (1926), with Maud Nelissen

Another film from Gerhard Lamprecht, this quite different from the first (Sins of the Father), but equally earnest in its pursuit of the social issues of the day namely child abuse in foster care. Lamprecht was the son of a prison padre and a humanist committed to moving society forward, a forward-thinking agenda that it’s all too easy to shake your head at: the rise of the most socially-destructive regimes was never inevitable and that is precisely why the recent history is so widely recognised in this city.

Peter Hewer (Ralph Ludwig), Lotte (Fee Wachsmuth) and Frieda (Margot Misch) are three illegitimate children in foster care with the Zielke’s. Herr Zielke (Max Maximilian) is a violent drunk who jokes with his pals in the bar that he’s off to have some fun beating his other half (Margarete Kupfer) who is just as hard on the children. Eventually this miserable existence takes its toll on Lotte and Peter is handed possible salvation by the well-off Frau Berndt (Hermine Sterler) only for his biological father (Bernhard Goetzke) to exert his legal right to take his child and work him hard on his barge…

Clearly there were injustices to be addressed but the film is naturalistic, well shot and delivers its message whilst entertaining. Lamprecht directs his young stars well and all three do very well… reader, there were moist eyes in the fifth row of the CinemaXx.

The Light of Asia / Prem sanyas (1925), with recorded score from Pierre Oser, and the ensembleKONTRAST

Lastly, I should mention the first film I saw, Die Leuchte Asiens, the first of the classic trilogy commissioned by Himansu Rai and Peter Ostermayer that came before A Throw of Dice and then Shiraz. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the excellence of the new Anoushka Shankar score for Shiraz, but I was slightly disappointed with the score that was played: a mix of chamber orchestration and electronica. There were treated instruments playing the leading lines and whilst these were not unpleasant I found them distracting and not always sympathetic.

Franz Osten directs this Indo-German co-production, which is never-the-less a special film with my main man Himansu Rai on top form as the Prince who wants to find peace with his god and the – rather young, 13/14?! - Seeta Devi, even then a performer of intensity and casual power, as his devoted wife.

A reminder, if one was needed that there’s more important philosophical work to be done to free ourselves from the mindsets of national identity and tribalism that bind our souls firmly to the ground.

Danke Berline, wir sehen uns nächstes Jahr!

Rocking the leather look

Festival in Berlin… Weimar Film at 68th Berlinale

My first trip to the Berlinale - indeed to Berlin - and a long weekend in which the best pictures included work from Johannes Vermeer and the brightest star was probably a lass named Nefertiti born in about 1370 BC. Berlin is indeed a wonderful town and has many artefacts, ancient and modern, that demand investigation. It presents twentieth century impacts like the thousands of bullet marks on its Victorian museums, as part of an ongoing civic culture of recognition and renewal with the recent past and its wounds not overlooked but given their due. As we walked along a section of the Berlin Wall, we discovered the remains of basements used by the Gestapo and SS in the 30’s and 40’s as well as a control centre for the concentration camps.

Berlin has been reconstructed and you have to look hard for the kind of old neighbourhoods you’d find in London or even Paris. The roots of this architectural devastation lie in the events after the ending of the Weimar Republic and this year’s Berlinale celebrated that rich period of creative and socio-political hope between 1919 and 1933, including 28 features films of which I'd previously seen just two. I managed to catch about a third before departing and these included a rich variety of styles all containing themes reflective of yesterday and tomorrow. One short film, Streets of Old Berlin (1928), was a poignant reminder of how the city looked before disaster, it’s still out there, but this history doesn’t hold Berliners back it propels them forward.

The first full day was spent in the comfy seats of the Zeughkino, part of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, in an elegant screening room complete with a grand piano from those Steinway people. The first two films dealt with the Franco-Prussian border and eternal enmities…

Kameradschaft (1931)

Regina, or The Sins of the Father (1927), with Maud Nelissen

This film, whilst not the greatest print, was still satisfyingly-dramatic, well-acted and well directed with oodles of late-period silent style. The camera tracks a horse in full gallop, it follows the hate around the room in the festering alehouse and there are many atmospheric night shots along The Cat’s Bridge; a thin trail between the village and the castle housing the disgraced Baron… also the scene of the Berlinale Retrospective’s poster.

It’s 1807 and Prussia is at war with Napoleon’s France and in Schranden, the local Baron is co-operating with the French and when his son, a lieutenant in the Prussian army, is returning on leave, they put an ambush into play before he arrives. The Baron forces the local undertaker’s daughter, Regina, to lead the French along the “Cat’s Bridge” – throttling her if she doesn’t - and they massacre the Prussian forces.

Regina (Lissy Arna) is at the heart of this complex tale of incompatible love and loyalty… where even familial ties do not bind: “My Mother was Polish…” says the Baron (Gustav Rodegg) and “My mother was Prussian…” responds the son, Boleslav (Jack Trevor). Both act out of loyalty, but the son tries to find a higher sense of duty, arranging the burial of his traitorous father and turning even his most loyal men against him in the process.

Regina lives with Boleslav in the ruins of the family castle and as she clings to their last chance, he initially treats her with Baronial indifference – there are no simple paths taken and no easy resolutions in director and writer Gerhard Lamprecht’s world.

The hatred in the town is something to see and the sins of the fathers are not only passed onto the sons, they are also unforgivable. Regine’s father (Max Maximilian) cannot forgive her in his drunken rages whilst the townsfolk, revel in his acceptance of his father’s position, washing down the bitter tastes of hatred with flagons of ale supplied by the town’s Mayor (Rudolf Lettinger)

Napoleon escapes and once more Prussia calls on its men to defend the flag. Boleslav enlists the locals to fight under him yet even then he is challenged by one of the ring-leaders, the mayor’s son, (John Mylong) and has to have him arrested. His former lover Helene (Louise Woldera) pleads with Boleslav to show lenience for her new man; she is the daughter of the local priest (Andreas Behrens-Klausen) who also just cannot forgive. As the angry mob waits to ambush him at the bridge, Regine runs off to protect him…

There’s always a price to pay and the sins of the fathers do indeed pass onwards as Germany and France discovered so many times after the Napoleonic wars. As with all Weimar Cinema, hindsight makes every warning doubly poignant and the film makers were not wrong in the slightest. So it went and so it goes…

Gerhard Lamprecht directs this sprawling tale well and even though the subject is nominally a costume drama the real issue is perhaps a consideration of the “Great Betrayal” that festered in the post-war years – the act of national denial which ultimately led to further calamity. Lissy Arna is superb as the woman outcast - guilty but brave - whilst Jack Trevor is also tremendously nuanced as the war hero who discovers moral courage is more important than physical: the power to forgive is what we need to move on whatever the endless backlog of injustice.

Maud Nelissen accompanied with well-practiced pacing: I liked the lyricism in her playing, well-formed and dynamic structures and I also loved her clever use of paused playing, showing, as Miles Davis used to say, the power of the spaces between the notes. Given the rich emotional textures on show, she trod the cat’s path with balanced poise.

Sons and Fathers

Kameradschaft / La tragédie de la mine Comradeship (1931)

Next up a talkie based on an incident on the German/French border in which German mine rescue workers went to the aid of hundreds of French miners stranded underground by a fire.

One of Georg Wilhelm “Pandora” Pabst’s first talkies it is a remarkable well-realised early talkie and one that was naturally in French and German. The theme of men being united more by common workman’s pride: miners helping miners, did not play well in Germany where the film sank, possibly with some behind scenes encouragement, but in France it was a huge success.

You can see why, it’s a taught, action-oriented thriller, with substantial supporting characters and some lump-in-the-throat bravery. There’s some lighter touches and a good cast, signs that Herr Pabst had mastered the new art of sound.

The rescue crosses the same borders fought over in Regine, and showed that power of worker solidarity… Again, as with other films of this period, hinting at what could have been.

Der Kampf ums Matterhorn/ Fight for the Matterhorn (1928) with Maud Nelissen

This being a Weimar Retro, I was desperate to see at least one “Mountain film” but with Leni R’s Blue Mountain sold out, settled for this long but frequently breath-taking adventure. Based on the “true story” of the Matterhorn first completed ascent, it featured some gorgeous vistas with sun shining through menacing clouds at 12,000 feet and probably higher! Directors Mario Bonnard and Nunzio Malasomma hauled their kit so far up the alpine peaks you figured they deserved their fair amount of triumphant views.

The film is very reminiscent of The Holy Mountain (1926) especially given that Luis Trenker features in both. Trenker may not have been the best actor in the world but he was almost certainly the best mountaineer who could act. His face is bronzed through continuous exposure to sun and snow and he looks the part standing, sitting or climbing.

The story is loosely based on the truth and the novel it inspired, Der Kampf ums Matterhorn (1928) by Carl Haensel. Trenker plays mountain guide Anton Carrel who is improbably married to the beauteous Felicitas (Marcella Albani) who is also the centre of attention for Anton’s annoying step-brother Giaccomo (Clifford McLaglen, Stepney-born brother of Victor and Cyril… they were everywhere those boys!)

A British climber, Edward Whymper (Peter Voss) arrives wanting to climb the Matterhorn… Anton won’t accompany him, but he does save him and them allows his brother to wind him up as the suave Whymper impresses his wife. Step-bro needles and pushes Anton so hard he takes Whymper up to challenge the summit and possibly ensure he has a climbing accident…

The brother is so unfeasibly annoying and yet this aside a fine adventure develops although it could easily have been half an hour shorter… Still, stirring stuff all the same aided by fine accompaniment from Maud Nelissen who filled those airy vistas with some beautifully patient lines and stayed with the mood as resolutely as Trenker clung to the granite.

Luis Trenker holds on

Ihre Majestät die Liebe/Her Majesty, Love (1931)

The end of day two and we have a madcap delight in the form of a Joe May comedy that could have been filmed for the Brothers Marx. If you like songs about the sexy benefits of gymnastics and stories in which the rich guy must find the courage to love the poor girl, that this one is right up your 42^nd Strasse!

Playboy Frederich von Willingen (Fritz, later Francis Lederer), is more concerned with the clubs and cabaret of Berlin than with contributing to the family business. This is dominated by his big – in every sense – brother Othmar (Otto Wallburg) who would like him to settle down, preferably in exchange for further investment in their business.

But Fred spends his time in idle pursuits, making bets on who can break the ice with attractive barmaid Lia Török (Käthe von Nagy), although even he can’t.

A meeting of the family board leads to his having to marry a rich potential investor, but he rebels and offers to marry Lia… Of course, it won’t be as simple as that and the pressure for Big Brother - a raise and a promotion – tests his will… Time for Lia to take the lead and so she does with hilarious results.

It’s frothy fun and with some excellent dance routines and if it had been made in Hollywood you’d class it and the gymnastics dance in particular (Tibor Halmay and Gretl Theimer, selling it well!), as definitely “pre-code”!

Where ever you looked there were fun, fantastic supporting performances, giving us the character and cabaret, we’d been hoping for, making us glad that we’d made the effort to come hear the music play and not stayed in, alone in our room…

Francis Lederer and Käthe von Nagy

And the winner for best picture...