Singoalla

I saw this film when I was fifteen and have never forgotten the amosphere, the b+w images of the plague years, and the passionate love between such disparate people. After all these years I still hope to see it again either on tv or on the screen, but my searches for it in London and Paris have been in vain. In my memory it has acquired a magic niche.

I blush to disclose that I have not read Viktor Rydberg's romantic fairytale 'The Wind is my Lover' but I am very pleased to have stumbled across this fabulous version by the successful directing/writing team of Christian-Jaque and Pierre Very. Filmed in Swedish, French and English it chronicles the relationship between gypsy girl Singoalla and melancholy Sir Erland Maneskold which is doomed from the outset by the difference in their social status, a rival's jealousy and the curse of the Maneskold Treasure. Courtesy of cinematographer Christian Matras and production designer Robert Gys this has a wonderfully Gothic feel. One cannot but sense that in the character of the mentally fragile Sir Erland who inhabits the eerie Castle of Widows there is more than a passing nod to Edgar Allan Poe, particularly 'Fall of the House of Usher.' Swedish composer Hugo Alfven wrote in a lush late-Romantic style and his score for this suits perfectly. The acting from all is uniformly excellent. Singoalla is played by the striking and intelligent Viveca Lindfors who appears in all three versions whilst Michel Auclair is mesmerising in the difficult role of Sir Erland. Marta Dorff is effective as his mother as is Louis Seigneur as the priest. There is a touching performance by Jean-Georges Chambort as the son who tries to bring his parents together. The precious few reviews for this haunting film are all positive and justifiably so.

I have read the earlier comment on this film to the effect that it was unforgettable, and I can heartily agree. I saw it in 1951 when I was 23; I did not fully understand the dialogue because I saw the Swedish version dubbed in Greek(I was performing my military service in Cyprus at the time) but the name of the film and its stark black and white imagery remain etched in my mind since then. When I saw a photograph of a castle a few years ago which seemed to stir up memories of this film, I was impelled to go to see it - Olavinlinna in Finland - which even if I have identified it wrongly, fits well into the sort of atmosphere conjured up by Viktor Rydberg's plot.I would very much like to see the film again - it has for me a haunting quality, which is quite unusual, because my normal habit is to see a film once and forget it.

The fact that this movie is not granted even one star in the "Guide Des Films" speaks volumes about what "modern" critics are still thinking of the Pre-Nouvelle Vague cinema.That there are three comments on it and that they are ALL positive prove that there is ,sometimes ,justice in the universe.

Ingmar Bergman himself was a trainee during the filming of "Singoalla " and it might have inspired him some aspects of his own "the seventh seal" .Bergman liked French directors who were/ are despised by the N.W.highbrows:Andre Cayatte and mainly Julien Duvivier he adored.

Now for the movie:first of all,it is a good movie,even a splendid one regarded in context .Christian-Jaque ,when he teamed up with Pierre Véry could not do wrong.Inspired by old Nordic legends ,there are echoes of Edgar Allan Poe in Véry's screenplay ,principally in the first thirty minutes ("Metzengernstein" and " The Fall of the House of Usher".A tale of love,death and fate between a young noble whose ancestors died in their prime and a fiery gypsy .

Michel Auclair gives a brilliant performance ,almost Shakespearian (as he was also a stage actor,he must have played "Hamlet" ),displaying romanticism,cynicism and madness.

The cinematography by Christian Matras is very dark and the characters and the landscapes seem to be wrapped in a shroud .Black silhouettes move in a desolation land .A couple walks across a fortress where everyone is dead ,some kind of Noire "Sleeping Beauty".Every character has his double : the gypsy and the fair lady Erland marries,the two children,Erland's mother and the old gypsy woman ,both not forgiving the lovers their treason,Erland and Assim,the priest and his heathen counterpart ,the gypsies' patriarch.

Like this?try these....

"L'Eternel Retour" ,Jean Delannoy/Jean Cocteau,1943

"Les Visiteurs Du Soir" ,Marcel Carné ,1942.

"Sortilèges" ,Christian -Jaque ,1944

I saw this film when I was fifteen and have never forgotten the atmosphere, the b+w images of the plague years, and the passionate love between such disparate people. After all these years I still hope to see it again either on television or on the screen, but my searches for it in London and Paris have been in vain. In my memory it has acquired a magic niche.