Louise Brooks is Lulu, a high-end prostitute in 1928 Berlin. She's always dancing around, gay, beautiful, careless -- like Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan except that instead of money she has sex. A couple of her clients are in love with her.
The first thing you notice about "Pandora's Box", aside from Louise Brooks' haircut, is the absence of the usual German expressionism, except for the final scenes, in which the cockeyed quality of the staircase and shadows are appropriate. There's an art deco bas relief prominently displayed on the wall of her husband's apartment but that's generic to the times. The second thing is the lighting, which is exceptionally good. It must be, because I noticed it.
Another thing you notice is that Berlin society in 1928 was pretty cosmopolitan and tolerant. Brooks is at least allowed some access to high society. There is a stage manager who is both identifiably Jewish and homosexual. Brooks' best friend, a Countess, is unquestionably a lesbian. Blacks appear both at a formal fête and in the jury box during Brooks' trial for manslaughter. (She accidentally shot her jealous husband during a struggle.) And I don't know what a menorah is doing on Brooks' mantelpiece but Jews were pretty well integrated into German society by that time and maybe ethnicity and religion didn't play the part it was to play ten years later.
Anyway, Brooks shoots her new husband, is convicted of manslaughter, and she and her lover flee during a chaotic fire alarm. They meet some nasty people. The couple try to reach Paris by train but Brooks is identified by a passenger who tries to blackmail them. The reward is 5,000 marks. How much would that be in Germany in 1928, you ask? Enough to buy a Bratwurst on a roll. All sorts of disasters befall them. Most of their friends and well wishers either get in trouble themselves or turn out to be pretty rotten.
In the end they wind up with their sole remaining companion, Carl Goetz, in a freezing garret. The windows are broken and a blizzard blows in. They're reduced to eating bread that is too stale to cut with a knife and must be broken by hand.
The practical side of Brooks resurfaces and says, "To hell with this." She parts her hair in the old way, paints her lips, and in out on the street looking for clients -- despite a posted warning that Jack the Ripper is on the loose. (By 1928, he must have been 90 years old but no matter.) Guess the identity of the first man she meets and invites up for a tete-a-tete in the garret. But Pabst and his writers, who have done a good job of giving us multi-dimensional characters so far, do it again, even with Jack the Ripper. He's not the personification of evil. He's a frightened, moneyless guy who -- try as he may -- cannot overcome his compulsion.
The movie is a downer. We all want Brooks and her lover, and their friend who manages to get Schnapps even in the most desperate of conditions, to live happy and comfortable lives. It's a downer, but a well-done downer.
The first thing you notice about "Pandora's Box", aside from Louise Brooks' haircut, is the absence of the usual German expressionism, except for the final scenes, in which the cockeyed quality of the staircase and shadows are appropriate. There's an art deco bas relief prominently displayed on the wall of her husband's apartment but that's generic to the times. The second thing is the lighting, which is exceptionally good. It must be, because I noticed it.
Another thing you notice is that Berlin society in 1928 was pretty cosmopolitan and tolerant. Brooks is at least allowed some access to high society. There is a stage manager who is both identifiably Jewish and homosexual. Brooks' best friend, a Countess, is unquestionably a lesbian. Blacks appear both at a formal fête and in the jury box during Brooks' trial for manslaughter. (She accidentally shot her jealous husband during a struggle.) And I don't know what a menorah is doing on Brooks' mantelpiece but Jews were pretty well integrated into German society by that time and maybe ethnicity and religion didn't play the part it was to play ten years later.
Anyway, Brooks shoots her new husband, is convicted of manslaughter, and she and her lover flee during a chaotic fire alarm. They meet some nasty people. The couple try to reach Paris by train but Brooks is identified by a passenger who tries to blackmail them. The reward is 5,000 marks. How much would that be in Germany in 1928, you ask? Enough to buy a Bratwurst on a roll. All sorts of disasters befall them. Most of their friends and well wishers either get in trouble themselves or turn out to be pretty rotten.
In the end they wind up with their sole remaining companion, Carl Goetz, in a freezing garret. The windows are broken and a blizzard blows in. They're reduced to eating bread that is too stale to cut with a knife and must be broken by hand.
The practical side of Brooks resurfaces and says, "To hell with this." She parts her hair in the old way, paints her lips, and in out on the street looking for clients -- despite a posted warning that Jack the Ripper is on the loose. (By 1928, he must have been 90 years old but no matter.) Guess the identity of the first man she meets and invites up for a tete-a-tete in the garret. But Pabst and his writers, who have done a good job of giving us multi-dimensional characters so far, do it again, even with Jack the Ripper. He's not the personification of evil. He's a frightened, moneyless guy who -- try as he may -- cannot overcome his compulsion.
The movie is a downer. We all want Brooks and her lover, and their friend who manages to get Schnapps even in the most desperate of conditions, to live happy and comfortable lives. It's a downer, but a well-done downer.