A film that keeps intact its mysterious glamor. Mecha Ortiz playing the main character established as the "femme fatal" symbol. Carlos Hugo Christensen directed this film using different symbols such as the cobweb to represent the man trapped and swallowed by the woman. Christensen gave to the photography of this picture a curious combination of lights and shades. He filmed a splendid masks ball, interiors in an expressionism style, the use of the sloping camera, a magic environment and the locations in Mendoza (province of Argentina)of a great lightness.The musical score by George Andreani is represented by a slow, melancholic and disturbing waltz. A good adaptation of Daudet's novel. . .
2 Reviews
"Safo" in my mind..., and on "You Tube..."
davidtraversa-120 October 2011
A long time ago I read that this movie was lost forever because in all Argentina nobody could find a copy. I think I read that in Mecha Ortiz (the protagonist of this movie) own autobiography.
Well, finding it on "You Tube" was quite a surprise, an unexpected surprise since Mecha said in her book that this movie was so daring at that time that it produced a great stir and for unknown reasons it eventually disappeared from circulation.
Unfortunately it should have remained lost for ever. Just from the very beginning this film is hopeless, it looks more antiquated that something done by the Lumiere Brothers at the turn of the 19 century and as primitive technically as something shot with a Lumiere camera.
The script is so syrupy that it invites nausea and the acting is even worse. I'm amazed that from the time they made this film (1942) to the present Argentinian movies have improved to an incredible perfection and artistry.
Some of the present film making here is comparable to the best in the world, but those old films one can see on "You Tube" (from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) are just unwatchable, not only because of their rudimentary technology but specially because of the false morality imbued in all the scripts, being they dramas, comedies or whatever, always that sacrosanct preaching about the modesty of women (virgin all of them until married) and the irreproachable manliness of the man of the house.
Do not waste your time with this atrocious unredeemed garbage.
Well, finding it on "You Tube" was quite a surprise, an unexpected surprise since Mecha said in her book that this movie was so daring at that time that it produced a great stir and for unknown reasons it eventually disappeared from circulation.
Unfortunately it should have remained lost for ever. Just from the very beginning this film is hopeless, it looks more antiquated that something done by the Lumiere Brothers at the turn of the 19 century and as primitive technically as something shot with a Lumiere camera.
The script is so syrupy that it invites nausea and the acting is even worse. I'm amazed that from the time they made this film (1942) to the present Argentinian movies have improved to an incredible perfection and artistry.
Some of the present film making here is comparable to the best in the world, but those old films one can see on "You Tube" (from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) are just unwatchable, not only because of their rudimentary technology but specially because of the false morality imbued in all the scripts, being they dramas, comedies or whatever, always that sacrosanct preaching about the modesty of women (virgin all of them until married) and the irreproachable manliness of the man of the house.
Do not waste your time with this atrocious unredeemed garbage.
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