Any discussion of silent film in Russia centers around the dawn of the Soviet era and its three great directors Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, and Pudovkin. Yet before World War I and the Russian Revolution there existed a flourishing film industry that is all but forgotten today. Among the people working at that time was one Evgeni Bauer (the first name has several different spellings) whose films I was totally unfamiliar with.
His career lasted only four years (he died in 1917 at the age of 52) but if the three films on this DVD are any indication of his other works then he certainly deserves the title "the greatest film director you have never heard of" given to him on the liner notes of this offering from Milestone Films. The most astonishing thing about these movies is how sophisticated their lighting and camerawork are. They are easily the equal of anything being done in Italy, France, or by D. W. Griffith at the time. Also noteworthy are the stories themselves which deal with psychological issues rarely found in films of this vintage.
Two of the three films feature Bolshoi ballerina Vera Karalli whose face is as expressive as her body. Her performance of the title piece in THE DYING SWAN from 1917 gives us a glimpse of what it would have been like to see Anna Pavlova dance. This story of a mute ballerina and an artist obsessed with death is the longest and most potent of the three thanks to its striking visual imagery. TWILIGHT OF A WOMAN'S SOUL (1913), the earliest of the films on the DVD, features a remarkably frank outlook on the plight of a woman who is abandoned by her husband after he discovers that she has been raped. Certain images from this film seem to foreshadow scenes in THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI. The second feature AFTER DEATH (1915) deals with the effects of a woman's suicide on a sensitive young man. Parts of it resemble the cinematic landscape of early Kurosawa.
All three films have been restored from Russian archival prints and are in excellent shape considering their age and feature newly composed scores which are highly effective. There is also a brief documentary on what to look for in Bauer's works from Russian film scholar Yuri Tsivian. A major discovery for silent film enthusiasts and a real eye opener for movie buffs as well. While MAD LOVE is the title given to this collection of films, it could have been subtitled "The Russian Revelation"...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.
