Judgement Day at le Giornate del Cinema Muto.
Vem Dömer? (La prova
del fuoco/Love’s Crucible) (1922) is perhaps not regarded at the same level
of Victor Sjöström’s major works but it is an immensely powerful film with Julius
Jaenzon’s peerless photography and one of Europe’s finest actresses (and the
world’s best ballerinas).
Jenny Hasselqvist had great technical gifts, prima poise and
physical control but she was also a skilled choreographer of emotional
narrative. You can see stories unfold across her features in a manner that always
reminds me of Isabelle Huppert: you don’t need title cards just a print as
gloriously fine as tonight’s projected on the Teatro Verdi’s mighty screen.
The story itself, as you would expect from Sjostrom, is more
than it seems and about as conventionally-religious as Ingmarssönerna (1919) – featuring an actual stairway to heaven - or
The Phantom Carriage (1921) featuring
a carriage driven by a phantom… In other words, it’s another delightful Victor
puzzle to de-code. In their notes for the festival, Magnus Rosborn and Casper
Tybjerg point out that the overt religious context was often misinterpreted critically
and may also have undermined the film’s success and yet it played a major part
in getting its director his gig in Hollywood.
Vem Domer? Is best
translated as who can judge? and it’s
as much about guilt and self-judgement as it is about religious redemption.
Jenny Hasselqvist’s character Ursula is after all responsible for her older
husband’s heart failure even though she doesn’t realise it. This sets up a
double whammy that the actress responds to operatically but convincingly; the
film has a feel of a folk story more than a character-driven thriller
especially when an angry mob cry “burn the witch!” and quickly arm themselves with
flaming torches. We just can’t do proper mobs anymore…
It’s superstition versus human reasoning and love versus
self-loathing, all very twentieth century concerns and home turf for Sjostrom
and Hasselqvist.
Neil Brand accompanied with some thunderous piano and Frank
Bockius on heavy-hitting percussion worthy of John Bonham. Together they whipped
the packed-out Teatro Verdi into a frenzy and a standing ovation… although
perhaps some just wanted to check that everyone was alright in the orchestra
pit! They could have run the climactic fire-walk over for an encore! Surely
there’s still time before the festival ends.
Vem Dömer? was,
for me, the third huge crescendo of the festival and this sceening cemented its
position one of my most cherished Sjostroms. It also features perhaps the most
purely expressive performances I’ve seen from Jenny Hasselqvist and it’s
interesting to compare with her more dialogue-driven work in Gosta Berling. Hopefully it will be
screened in London and more people can see this remarkable actress at work.
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| Nadia Sibirskaïa |
We also watched: Dimitri
Kirsanoff’s beguiling Ménilmontant (1926)
was the perfect coda after the faith and flames with Stephen Horne and Romano
Todesco weaving sophisticated lines around the seemingly disjointed story line.
It all makes sense though as violence begets misery and two orphaned sisters
eventually find themselves in Paris. One of these is played by Nadia Sibirskaïa
who runs deeper than the stillest of waters; her face a puzzle of intensity framed
by a mass of frizzed red hair often haloed by her husband’s camera direction.
The film was paired with Fièvre (1921) directed by Louis
Delluc of whom Léon Moussinac of Le
Crapouillot said was “inside cinematic truth…” in his review. “The image is
absolutely self-sufficient, with only strictly indispensable textual
interventions…”
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| Yuliya Solntseva, she got a hat and she got ahead... |
Also inside cinema but with, perhaps a different truth, was the soviet fantasy Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) which I had
seen previously but not – I think – in this length or quality. Once you stop
thinking of Aelita as science fiction, it makes a whole lot more sense; a film
about the difficulty of consolidating revolution a mere half decade after
Russia had been won. It’s a mix of styles even on Earth and the sections on
Mars, stunning sets and costumes aside, are almost more dramatically straightforward.
It’s an enjoyable sprawl with many soon to be famous actors
making their debut and a big budget hit at a time when The Dream was still
alive even in the year Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov died.
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| Jenny Hasselqvist: dancing days |
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