La Habanera

On a holiday in Puerto Rico, Astree (Zarah Leander) falls in love with nobleman Don Pedro de Avila and marries him. Our story begins ten years later, when things have begun to come awry... And things are heating up for Don Pedro who, as patron of the island, has to contend with a pair of scientists who have arrived in Puerto Rico with plans to find a cure for Puerto Rico Fever, which de Avila doesn't want publicised as existing, since it would be bad for tourism.

I love La Habanera. I've seen it twice so far. I was lucky enough to tape it one time when it was on TV, so now i've got this little copy of it sitting on my shelf that i can watch whenever I like (there are no DVD or VHS releases of any Sirk films in Australia - and I wouldn't have chosen La Habanera if i was going to order some Sirk from overseas).

It's melodrama, and designed as crap for the masses - but there's just something beautiful about everything in it. The noble beauty in Don de Avila's face during the courtship scenes at the beginning, which has turned to harshness and brooding intensity when we cut to ten years later. His burning eyes and face burn up the screen. Some of my other favourite things in it are the ceiling fan during the card game, the light through the slats in the scientists' room, the face of Dr Luis Gomez, the scene where Dr Nagel goes out in the street on a windy night and finds the fever sufferer, and, best of all, the magnificent pond in the middle of the room during the scene where Ms Leander sings the Habanera, and in which we see the reflection of the room.

There is a poetry to the images that you may not notice unless you come in half-way through (like I did, on my first viewing), so that you can't really follow what's happening in the plot. Doing this was a revelation for me. I was forced to just look at the pretty pictures, and i found, to my surprise, that there was something transfixing and poetic about them.

Second run through, when I watched it from the beginning, I found I also loved the story and the characters, which was a bonus. I found myself caught up in this little world Sirk had made for me. And the seemingly outlandish soap-opera lines somehow seemed perfect!

10/10. Mainly from surprise at how passionate i've grown for what is essentially a simple melodrama.

The acting was good, and convincing enough . Ferdinand Marian as the jealous husband plays his part well, and does seem a little crazy. Zarah Leander as one of the leading actresses in Germany did well too, though I reckon most of her roles are similar in that she needs to act cool, and sing with her characteristic deep voice. Leander can be seen as a substitute for Marlene Dietrich who left for America, and Leander's role here reminds me of Dietrich's role in Blonde Venus. There are some similarities to both narratives as well as both women's role as a mother. Karl Martell and Boris Alekin were pretty much the only ones who seemed to brighten up the film with their charismatic persona.

The story was interesting enough for the most part, though it is interesting to analyse the film in terms of Nazi propaganda. The Puerto Ricans are depicted as uncivilized, rough and corrupt, while the Swedish (ultimately the Germans) are seen in clean environments and depicted as rich, gentlemanly and having better technology. Plus, the son is the ideal image of an Aryan. Coincidence? I think not! (Leander's character is established as Swedish so as to divert any accusations that this film is Nazi propaganda. I really didn't think about this at all, but that is what my professor says, and it makes sense)

Though the ending does cause some confusion. Asteree says she has no regrets, but throughout the film she complains miserably about how she wasted her life there. Making the message at the end a little ambiguous.

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An incredibly stupid film, this one should be avoided. Leander has done so much better work for the screen, and one shouldn't waste one's time on this miserable attempt to create the exotic, sensual southern atmosphere that would make the middle class German hausfrau's heart beat quicker. Leander herself is much better in less melodrama, and in this particular film she doesn't even have the best possible songs to sing. Go for something else instead.

"La Habanera" has not a very high intrinsic value. The plot is a romance with a very predictable happy end.

The film has however some historical interest. It was made by Douglas Sirk when he was still in Germany and operated under his real name Detlef Sierck. Sierck went ultimately to the USA but he did so later than other German directors. "La Habanera" was made in 1937 when the Nazi regime was already in power for a few years. Together with the fact that the screenplay was written by Gerhard Menzel, a writer who was also involved with some of the worst Nazi propaganda, the film got a bad name for a long time. Objectively there is much escapism and very little Nazi ideology in the plot. The film is much less "politically incorrect" than the oeuvre of Leni Riefenstahl, and even her films are gradually being reassessed according to artistic (and not political) standards

Like Fritz Lang Douglas Sirk was married to a wife with Nazi sympathies. His second wife was Jewish and of course they wanted to leave Nazi Germany. At this time the story of his life showed striking similarities with the story of the main character of "La Habanera". Leaving the country with his second wife also meant leaving behind the son that he had with his first wife. This son stayed in Germany with his Nazi mother, played as child star in Nazi propaganda and died at a young age in the war.

The main character of "La Habanera" is played by the Swedisch actress Zarah Leander. While her compatriot and contemporary Greta Garbo went to Hollywood, Zarah Leander became an UFA (German filmstudio) star. She ended up on the wrong side of history. Greta Garbo became an icon, Zarah Leander fell into oblivion.

I love this film. I love it for itself, and I love it for the light it sheds on Sirk's later Universal pictures of the '50's. The DVD from Kino comes with a brilliant little essay by Jan-Christopher Horak where, among other things, he asks the question "But was it (this film) really transgressive?" This same question has been asked about Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life and all the others. And all of us who love Sirk's films need to ask ourselves this question from time to time. I can say that what I find transgressive in Sirk's work is the multiplicity of angles and approaches that the films reveal. They dare to find the beauty and truth in melodrama. They dare to be ironic without snickering. For all the acclaim that Far From Heaven received, no one, as far as I know, commented on the fact that, compared to Sirk, Haynes stacks the deck. None of his minor characters have the emotional or psychological complexity that Sirk's do. They are stick figures for us to laugh knowingly at. They are "camp". But Sirk plunges into his work with such camp icons as Leander (here) and Rock Hudson (elsewhere) and comes up with a text that continues to resonate long after the images have flickered away.

Horak goes on to say that in this film, Puerto Rico is exciting, exotic and dangerous, a typography of the Other, while Sweden represents "all that is Heimat". A vision of Aryan homeland, and thus a site for subliminal Nazi ideology. Did Sirk do no more than artistically mirror the status quo? I think not.Sirk was a successful director of "women's pictures" in the early days of the Third Reich, just as he was in the America of the '50's. What is oppositional in his work is not any kind of obvious political subtext, but an attitude towards image and material where the despotic Don Pedro is counterpoised with the smothering, nearly incestuous Astree. And both of them are covered in shadows, slats, mirrors, flowers - all of the accoutrements of the Sirkian hothouse atmosphere. Some sickly-sweet, unhealthy thing is always insinuating itself into the mise - en - scene. Sirk is like what Walter Benjamin called Baudelaire: a secret agent of his class and society. His missives send images of that society to its members that correspond to the vision they have of themselves. And underneath that there is another level of text. Nothing so obvious as "critique". But portraiture - "la verite en peinture" - sometimes as devastating as Goya's.