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.

If you want to see a melodramatic love story, see The Notebook [2004]. This film should be seen for its stereotypical portrayal of non-Aryan people. After all, the film was made in Germany at a time when spurious theories of racial superiority were being concocted by the leaders of Nazism. The moral of the story is that a Nordic woman should never dare to marry or get involved with anyone not from her own race because she will be victimized in the process. In the end, the nobler northerners get it their way against the weaker southerners. This is so even when an argument could be made that don Pedro was simply the victim of a typical pattern of racism for ten very long years. In fact, he couldn't even teach his son Juan to love the culture of San Juan because his mother brainwashed him to long for snow in the middle of the Caribbean. Hard as he tried, don Pedro could not overcome the iron-will of his wife. In hindsight, should the story be true, the ones making a grave mistake are the arrogant people who go back to Sweden before the outbreak of World War 2.

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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The earliest example of Douglas Sirk's filmography that I have seen is this German melodrama starring Swedish singing star Zarah Leander. Although hardly a major film when judged against his later, more renowned Hollywood output of the 1950s, at the same time it is just as well-crafted and visually polished a film as any he ever made. A Swedish tourist, vacationing in Puerto Rico with her stuffy elderly aunt, falls in love with its exotic ambiance and laid-back lifestyle and impulsively elopes with its leading citizen Don Pedro (Ferdinand Marian) while at the harbor. Cut to 10 years later and their marriage, which has bore them a son, is at the end of its tether; meanwhile, the resilient aunt decides to entrust an old friend of her niece's – called over there to investigate the outbreak of an epidemic fever – to bring her back home. Don Pedro tries his utmost to keep the real health situation in his community under wraps and this serves to add another layer of animosity towards the Swedish scientist. The titular anthem is heard in various forms throughout the film and, for whatever reason, Leander feels the need to belt it out in public as a farewell gesture to the land and man (who has eventually succumbed to the fever himself) that had captured her heart all those years ago.

This is the first of the two melodramas Detlef Sierck made with Zarah Leander,and although it is more celebrated and more popular,I think that its screenplay is definitely weaker than that of "Zu Neue Ufern" aka "Paramatta" or even the overlooked " Stutzen Der Gesellschaft" (1935) which predates many of Sierck's topics which will be developed in "all that Heaven allows" notably.But the directing is more inventive in "Habanera".

It's strange that both "Habanera" and "zu Neue Ufern" are "exotic" works ,both taking place in South America;but while in the latter ,Europa (England that is) is considered a country where prudery (this scandalous show!)and cruelty (the heroine is sentenced to hard labor for 600 miserable pounds)rule,it plays an opposite role in the former:Sweden is some kind of Eldorado -one should note that Detlef Sierck is Danish and his star is Swedish- where civilization reigns and where science and medicine allow their citizens to live in freedom and happiness.The heroine's new hot land is the country of crooked physicians ,of corrupt cops ,of evil.

Detlef Sierck's directing is the best of the four German movies I've seen by him.He creates a stifling atmosphere with his dark rooms ,without showing any sun,where the shadows of the blinds reflect on the heroine and give the viewer the strange feeling she is in jail.The only freshness he gets is provided by a sequence in Sweden and,oddly,when the heroine tells her son about her country .

Zarah Leander sings ,but nothing here approaches her sensational "yes sir ,no sir" in the music hall in "Zu Neue Ufern" .But her rendition of "la Habanera" has a great emotional power ,because her former love is listening to her .

To those who would think that Sirk was embracing Nazi ideology: 1)He left Germany after "zu neuen Ufern" the same year. 2)His first American movie "Hitler's madman" was a strong anti-Nazi manifesto,actually propaganda 3)He made " a time to love and a time to die" in 1958,from E.M.Remarque,the pacifist writer whose books were burned by the Nazis;it tells the story of a German soldier who died in WW2;exactly what happened to Sirk's own son.