Russian silent films
these were all quite short (at least two of them are the only surviving fragments; the third might be too though it seemed pretty well-contained) so i'm putting them all in one post. i wish the box set had given any information about these, it probably would have enhanced my appreciation of the two that i didn't care for, and i still would have enjoyed knowing more about the one i liked!
The Portrait (Władysław Starewicz, 1915)
a startlingly effective little vignette! a man buys a creepy portrait, and when he takes it home and cleans it, is startled to find the image changing to a different creepy visage. he looks closer, and the face moves! he covers it up and goes to bed, but in the night, the cover falls off, and the face (and attached body) climbs out of the frame.
the central effect looked really good; the first time it was shown in close-up was when the face moved, so because of the angle change it didn't look obviously different having a painted actor there instead until he moved. i'm sure the low-res and deep shadows of the old filmstock contributed a lot to this looking as seamless as it did, but i was still really surprised by how convincing it looked.
n.b.: the menu on the disc has the title of this one and the third film (Satan Exultant) swapped.
4/5
The Queen of Spades (Thorold Dickinson, 1949)
this one was fine! i enjoyed the fades between dream and reality, and the Countess appearing to die, then showing up to say "fine, here's your winning cards", was fun, and i thought pretty obviously said "bro you should NOT make these bets", but well, that's why i'm not the protagonist of a silent film.
2.5/5
Satan Exultant (Yakov Protazanov, 1917)
(letterboxd has the title listed as "Satan Triumphant", while it's "Satan Exultant" on All the Haunts Be Ours, which imo is a much more evocative word.)
can't say i cared for this one. i struggled to keep the characters straight despite them all looking very distinct from one another, i guess i just didn't quite get the cues that are supposed to tell you about them. and the translation of the intertitles was abysmal; "we don't drink win" and "the sin is up" were easy enough to figure out the meaning of, but one of the very early ones was so jumbled that i really struggled to make out what it was trying to say. granted, it's hard to put together fragments into a compelling whole, but this one just did not compel me in any way.
n.b.: the menu on the disc has the title of this one and the first film (The Portrait) swapped.
1/5