If Hammer made Soviet historical dramas with a
propagandist edge in the silent era it would probably be exactly like The
Wings of a Serf (1926) which is, in so many ways, years ahead of its time
in terms of blood, gore, S&M, sci-fi, gruesome behaviours and even a touch
of what would be termed deviant sexuality. Kim Newman, give Mark Gatiss a call,
there’s a classic mondo bizarro movie waiting to be remade….
Writing these blogs is the treading of a fine line between
instant reactions and hot takes as well as properly understanding the works we
have just seen, and clearly there’s a lot more to this particular soviet film
than is clear on first viewing and Maya Garcia’s note in the catalogue are very
good at providing context. This is also a film made in the more laissez fair
years between Lenin and Stalin and the latter’s conservative clamp down of the
early thirties onwards. Here homosexuality had been decriminalised and it is
indeed witnessed in The Wings of a Serf in the relationship between the Tsar (Leonid
Leonidov) and his favourite Fadke Basamanov (Nikolai Prozorovsky). But here it
is being used to emphasis the Tsar’s unacceptable qualities and that can only
be the case if you think what they are doing is wrong?
Or, as a writer in Kino-Front in 1927 put it, “in a Soviet
historical picture, the important thing is class struggle, not the personality and
pathology of the Tsar…”Eisenstein would agree and was clearly making notes. Equally
you have to wonder at how the flying inventions of serf Nykishka (Ivan Klyukvin)
fit in with the depiction of this “terrible” and not “awe-inspiring” Ivan? He prevents
the young inventor from being killed by giving him the chance to develop his
machine and offering freedom if it works, but then declares it the work of the
Devil and orders his execution.
So it’s also Ivan the Inconsistent as well as Sadistic… but
he’s not alone and the cruelty of the film’s opening section is provided by
boyar Kurlyatev who, having called Nykishka to fix his clock, tortures him for
his science secrets while seducing his lover Fima (Sofya Garrel) by luring her
to his chambers. Now it’s Ivan the Intolerant as he sees a way of dealing with
his Kurlyatev problem and sends his private army (Oprichniks) to destroy his
enemy's estate and bring his serfs to his court at Alexandrovskaya Sloboda.
Here the serfing mechanic once again proves useful by fixing a flax-breaking
wheel and gains further reprieve…
But the film’s break-neck madness is that no one is
trusted and no one is safe from the wrath of Ivan the Unpredictable who will turn
on family and friends quicker than Old Joe from Georgia. Meet the Old Boss,
same as the New Boss… He can be feeding grapes to Fadke one minute and strangulating
his already tortured wife the next as she tries to help the man who, if anyone
just stopped and thought clearly for a second, could establish air superiority
for the Russians, 300 years before they’d need it!
Mauro Colombis provided spirited accompaniment through
the many moods of the Tsar and found musical method in spite of the madness on
screen.
Rediscoveries – Victor Sjöström, with Stephen Horne
The film of the day came early… and even this controversial
being the first to ever be banned in Sweden. The Gardener (1912) was Sjöström’s second film
although he had been working in theatre since the mid 1890s and so was both an
experienced performer as well as director. The script was from Mauritz Stiller,
his friend and mentor who also makes and uncredited appearance as a reveller when
the heroine is on a boat.
The film was banned for as contrary to "good
practices" and for “embellishing death” although I’m sure there would have
been more freedom to express the contents on stage at this time. The story
concerns a farmer/gardener (Sjöström) who disapproves of his son (young Gösta
Ekman!) having a relationship with the daughter of one of his workers played by
Danish actress Lili Bech. Having chased his son of his true motives are
revealed as his rapes her in the green house before sending her and her father
away to penury just to save his own skin.
There are no easy answers in this film and also no predictable
narrative decline into drink and prostitution as often seen in films of the
period. The woman keeps going and finds a away through the support of a kindly
old general (John Ekman) but after a few years he dies and his children force
her out. Returning to her home village she must confront the past and what it
has meant for her life.
Bech is so naturalistic and unmannered something the
stage-trained Scandinavians seem to have managed from the get-go helped, no
doubt, by the theatrical qualities of their culture and the existence of great
performance managers like Sjöström, The film, once considered lost, is just
over half an hour but contains more quality moments – cinematography already
from the mighty Julius Jaenzon.
There were four tantalising fragments from other early Sjöström
films and Stephen Horne brought the epic lyricism to the lakes and mountains of
Värmland … or close by!
It's only 1912 but already the men who would make the
Golden Age of Swedish Cinema are already in place, now, why not start taking
some of Selma Lagerlöf’s stories and turn them into films?
Now for the quick-fire round…
Directed by Augusto Genina this was an thriller about sinking ships, family treasure and evil gangs. It moves at quite a lick and whilst missing some sections holds together entertainingly as the Captain of a sunken liner (Vasco Creti) helps a young Viscontessa (Ileana Leonidoff) recover her lost inheritance. There are castles, mysteries, fiendish crooks, fights and chases... it was FUN!
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| Kissa Kouprine |
La Perle (BE 1929) with Meg Morley
More Belgian Avant-Garde and one of the most entertaining
and cohesive with Henri d' Ursel’s The Pearl (1929). Written and starring
Georges Hugnet as Le Jeune Homme, The Pearl could signify possession or
it could mean love… it may even be just a pearl. I don’t think it matters to
any forensic degree, you can overlay your own interpretation according to mood:
the key thing is that the film draws you in and makes you think. This properly
defies any constraining interpretations and, by the rules, your guess is as
good as mine. All we know for certain is what happens on screen.
A young Lulu (Mary Stutz) waits in her garden for her
fiancé and he sets off to buy her a pearl necklace. Here is the films funniest
joke as Lulu looks out and we see her man running through woods, rowing across
a river then running through town getting distracted by a street game… You
expect her to view him directly but he’s far away, initially heroic and then
just distracted.
At the jewellery store, a pretty shop assistant (Kissa Kouprine,
the only professional actor on show who featured in a number of Marcel
L’Herbier’s films) steals pearls and carelessly hides them in her stocking top
which is all too visible as she sits chatting on a ledge. The girl has no name
and is only referenced in the title sequence as La Voleuse – The Thief. He
leaves the shop with his pearls and she follows him, hitching a ride on his
bike. The man crashes his bike and the string of pearls is broken… the man
searches but there is still a pearl missing. It rolled directly to La Voleuse
who walks off with it leaving him fatuously pawing the ground...
He goes to an hotel and La Voleuse is everywhere,
appearing in a tight-fitting silver-grey cat suit – an updated, sleeker version
of Irma Vep - from every corridor, pursuing the man and his pearls. She is not
alone and there are other women all wearing the same costume. Are all women
looking for “The Pearl” and you can make of that what you will.
In the evening we travelled back to that place again for East
Lynne with Variations (US 1919) featuring the great Marie Prevost showing
up the Keystone Boys yet again!
The Man Who Came Back (US 1924) with John
Sweeney
Festival director, Jay Weissberg gave out a number of
trigger warnings starting with the unknown ten-minute soft porn films of a
young woman being caught skinny dipping by a man after her dog runs off with
her clothes. It felt more like a 70s Brit sex comedy than the usual fare but I’m
sure it was artistically justified.
There was worse to come in the main feature and not in
George O’Brien’s drinking and Dorothy Mackaill’s drug taking but in the ways
his character beats hers when he suspects her of falling off the wagon leaving
her… “grateful”? “Oh Henry… we’ve won…” she says as she staggers to her feat
the beating apparently worth it as some show of love? George too was skinny
dipping and – as one cineaste later remarked – not for long enough.
O’Brien’s tyle of acting does tend to rely on him
swaggering around trying to control his abnormal muscle mass and ripping his
shirt off at the slightest opportunity. Here he looked ill-matched with the delicate
features and other-worldly hair mass of Mackaill who not only looked like she
was in the wrong decade but also acted like it versus Burly O’Brien. The two
played Henry “Harry” Potter (fnar!!) and his lover Marcelle who he meets on a
journey to prove himself to his father that his wasteful gambling and drinking
years are over. Sadly things get far worse before they get better which is
pretty brave for a film about addiction at this time.
The estimable Ralph Lewis plays his self-made and hard to
please, father whilst Emily Fitzroy is disapproving Aunt Isabel with Cyril
Chadwick as the man of unknown allegiance Captain Trevelan… Emmett J. Flynn
directs well and it is a tense film that deals frankly – too frankly in parts –
with difficult subjects. The restoration looks fabulous but the special effect
for me is Ms Mackaill who’d I never seen in a film before this one and who
acted not just George but everyone else off screen. One to watch, mark my
words!
John Sweeney was again on top form for this one smoothing
out the melodrama and heightening the drama in ways that might be unconscious
to him now but are the result of many hundreds of thousands of hours treading
this remarkable musical path!
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