Il vaso di Pandora

I had heard "Pandora's Box" called a German Expressionist film, the class to which such great and outlandish films as Wiene's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", and Lang's "Metropolis" and the sadly dated but very interesting "Nosferatu" by Walter Murnau, I expected it to have the same elements-- extremely stylized acting and direction, bizarre artificial sets, and a general atmosphere of utter surreality. So I was very surprised at and fascinated with the naturalism of G. W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box", particularly with Louise Brook's celebrated performance as the cheerful, childlike, tragic femme fatale Lulu. Pabst's direction is essentially modern, even without the use of sound. While sometimes the direction and acting in even "Caligari" and "Metropolis" provoke laughter from the bemused audience,"Pandora's Box" holds the viewer spellbound, and its not infrequent humor is intentional. Like other German Expressionist silent films, "Pandora's Box" has a dark message. From the beginning, however, it is far less stylized, and the settings look like they might actually have existed in the 1920's, instead of only in someone's dream world. Nevertheless the film makes excellent use of Expressionistic lighting and chiaroscuro, which highlights the visions of fruitless and immoral frivolity, desperate gambling and unhealthy sexuality.

Altogether, this film is beautiful and absorbing, and even if nothing else, it should not be missed for Louise Brooks' superb performance.

Louise Brooks may have never studied acting, but every actor should study her. How much they can learn is questionable though. This dancer/chorus girl turned film star was one of those rare creatures who probably couldn't have told you what she was doing, even if she thought long and hard about it (and Brooks was an intelligent, articulate woman.)

Like a great natural athlete, she simply could do it, and do it better than almost anyone else. Pandora's Box is the greatest existing record of her technique and remarkable talents.

On the surface, a run of the mill story of a femme fatale who destroys the men around her, this G. W. Pabst film is complicated, dark, moody, and seemingly packed with contradictory messages. Well acted and well directed by Pabst, it nonetheless would have been forgotten decades ago, had it not been for its star.

Brooks was one of the most beautiful, most photogenic woman to ever appear on the screen. From some angles, her face is so remarkable it almost doesn't seem real.

Her personality exceeds her beauty and it was the perfect personality to capture the childish, petulant, self centered, yet sweetly innocent kid who is the embodiment of every pretty girl who wants what she wants, regardless of the consequences.

Pabst' film, based on two German stage plays, is also a fascinating look at male sexual obsession, at men unable to control their lust who want to destroy the object of that lust before she destroys them.

Yet all the messages aside, it is simply Brooks totally natural performance that in the end will be remembered here.

Ironically, Brooks was really no more than a starlet in her American silent film days and it took her three European films to elevate her name above the title. And those films were hardly seen in the U.S. in their day. Yet today, women whose names were household words in America in the silent era, like Coleen Moore and even Clara Bow, are all but forgotten, while the Brooks legend grows stronger each year.

While Brooks has benefitted from a well written biography and the adoration of much of the press, a close examination of Pandora's Box proves she was much more than just hype.

This movie is one of the great treasures of the cinema, and Louise Brooks is one of the most talented and most fascinating actresses to ever appear in movies, on either side of the Atlantic.

Describing a film like PANDORA'S BOX is difficult. As a sterling example of German Expressionism you know it's not a piece of fluff. It's complex, deep, and not for the sitcom and Star Trek crowds. You have to lose yourself in it, and that is to lose yourself in Louise Brooks as PANDORA'S BOX is her movie. Not to diminish the genius of G.W. Pabst but it is Brooks that dominates this movie like so few actors can do. Without Brooks this movie could not exist.

Whew. And what's it about you may ask? It's a morality play made and set in the Berlin of 1928. While I watched the film I could not shake the knowledge of the cataclysm that was to be unleashed on Germany in five short years. In a way Pabst knew it too. (I was particularly weirded by the prominent display of a menorah in one of the Berlin apartment sets.)

I recommend that everyone that loves movies should at some point find the video store in their neighborhood that stocks old movies, rent PANDORA'S BOX, and experience it for themselves.

This feature has quite an unusual feel to it - generally downbeat, but engrossing, and filled with sordid characters and settings, yet somehow artistic. Moreover, it's not downbeat or sordid in the pretentious, empty way that characterizes so many recent movies. Rather, despite portraying its characters in a largely unfavorable light, it neither exploits them nor glorifies them. These persons are shown simply to be what they are, and while there is a certain inevitability about many of the things that befall them, there is a thoughtfulness as well. You would not want to be like, or perhaps even meet, most of these characters, and yet you want to wish them better luck.

Louise Brooks gets most of the attention (both in the movie itself and from those who discuss it). The "Pandora's Box" image for her character is appropriate, in that Lulu is never ill-intentioned nor malicious, and yet she often puts the other characters in difficult situations, just by being who she is and acting naturally. All of the other significant characters are defined largely in terms of their responses to her and relationships with her, and all of the characters (including Lulu) have very evident faults and make some very preventable blunders. The result is an unusual and very interesting movie. Director G.W. Pabst deserves the credit most of all for creating the atmosphere, putting everything together, and making it work so well.

Besides the grim fatalist moral lesson, the film is lacking Expressionist ideals, and is more in tune with later Weimar cinema. The fact that it has a female lead certainly separates it from the classic Expressionist works. And shadowing and landscape techniques are much more modernized reflecting Weimar's embrace of technology and immersion into consumer culture. Even today, there are few female actors that represent such a powerful will and dominant presence as Louise Brooks did in her masterful performance. The film was not very popular at its time of production and I wonder how much that has to do with this strong female presence.