Brumes d'automne

A woman -- a pained expression on her face -- burns letters in a stove.

Dimitri Kirsanoff is not a famous name, but a true lover of the cinema. Born in Estonia, he moved to Paris and became involved in film very indirectly (he played the cello at screenings). Somehow he transitioned to director (I suppose the "how" is he just decided to shoot things one day).

This one is pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And something most people can probably relate to. The idea of the "burn box", moving on in life. Our old life (whether work or a relationship) burns, and it works as sort of a catharsis and relief.

At this time, those longhaired youngsters interested in this Herr Graf's silent rants, probably will know, among other aristocratic trifles, the fondness of this German count for the autumn season, an indispensable relief for the battered aristocrats, wearied after enduring the sufferings of the summer season going to and fro, that is to say, from soirées to private balls, from Baden-Baden to Monte Carlo.

All the virtues of the autumn season are wonderfully depicted in a short but exceptional silent film, "Brummes D'Automne" (1929), another superb, lyrical masterpiece by Herr Dimitri Kirsanoff.

As it says in the preface to this beautiful short film, "Brummes D'Automne" is a cinematic poem, an astounding, lyrical and avant-garde oeuvre wherein Herr Kirsanoff gets hold of the titanic task of capturing the melancholy, nostalgia, the hope and hopelessness of human inner sentiments. Frau Nadia Sibirskaia ( Herr Kirsanoff's first wife and his muse during his early oeuvres ) reflects these aims perfectly and Herr Kirsanoff transmits them to the audience in an incredible way.

The genuine autumn mood is exhibited in "Brummes D'Automne" in a superior, unique, painful and even magical manner. It is an exceptional film in which the autumn atmosphere and ethereal human feelings complement each other admirably. The audience is moved by evocative images from nature ( falling leaves, rain, mist frozen landscapes), all beautifully photographed by Herr Jean de Miéville. This, combined with the suffering the heroine must undergo, makes "Brummes D'Automne" a melancholy masterpiece.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must enjoy the autumn season mood.

This is a short poem of the camera by Kirsanoff, the man who had given us Menilmontant a few years prior, one of the most exquisite and far-reaching in cinema.

He's here with just a camera, the girl from Menilmontant - his girl in real life Nadia - and films her in a few desolate places. You need no more to make cinema, not really. It captures poetic loss, a hazy wandering through a forlorn world.

It's not just painterly evocation either and to say, as another review here does, that "all we get here basically is the apparently lonely heroine walking" is to miss the most crucial point. This is - in the short time the film can allot to it - about a breakup.

She's burning up a stash of letters in a fireplace as the film begins. We have what is let go of - and becomes chimney smoke the air takes - and what is carried on as memory. We have, with just a few fleeting glimpses of the camera, a man walking out of the house contrasted with her distraught face. She then wanders around, muddy roads, textures of weather.

Kirsanoff is sketching, to be sure. But it matters that he presents the breakup in such a way. He could have plainly shown us a fight, or crisply framed shots of the man leaving instead of these half- finished glimpses. He gives us edges only, the air displaced by bodies, this is what she carries and it's in this way that memory echoes back. Consider it an addendum to Menilmontant, a positing of much the same world that blurs and recedes by seeing and this as someone's own soul.

How stunning then - and encouraging - to consider that, however limited or rough, it was something that was being newly discovered at the time and how far we've sailed on these notions. This would be the fulcrum of Resnais' cinema first and now Malick's.

If you ever come across it, I recommend that you don't just watch it as primitively artistic short from the time; watch it as though someone like Malick was pushing against the limits of what was known to be possible, as a private sketch from someone who may have been a master of film.

Unlike the same director's MENILMONTANT (1926), with which it shares leading lady Nadia Sibirskaia (though not seen to similar advantage here), this runs for just 12 minutes. Unfortunately, its length is exclusively devoted to the less successful element of the earlier film, i.e. what is proudly but awkwardly described in a sub-title as "A Cine-graphic Poem".

In fact, all we get here basically is the apparently lonely heroine walking along the garden of her vast estate, her morose countenance paralleled by the gloomy ambiance one normally associates with the titular season.