Casanova

This sweeping, humourous, action-filled account of the famous lover is no classic, but it never slows down long enough to be boring. From Venice he travels to Russia, where he becomes involved with Catherine the Great, returning to Venice for a rousing finale. Better than average acting - although the characters are mostly fairly thin - and a wonderful visual style, with one long scene filmed in colour. If you aren't a fan of the silent era, this isn't for you, but if you're interested in cinema pre-sound, it's worth a look, especially in the immaculately restored version.

Ivan Mosjoukine pulled out all the stops to make the notorious rake look like a prototype James Bond. We've seen this in countless silent films already: historical and pseudo-historical figures such as Don Juan, Villon, any Doug Fairbanks movie. He's a superhero: irresistible lover, unbeatable swordsman (in both senses), daring spy, flashy gambler, unstoppable polymath, contortionist and escape artist, international man of mystery, debonair socialite, hero of the common people, and officially a wanted/outlawed desperado.

The weirdest thing is that that's exactly what Casanova was in real life, according to himself, but more or less substantiated by official documents and other persons' accounts. He was far, far more than merely the inveterate lover that his name has come to signify.

The film is spectacular, sensational, dazzling, a Baz Luhrmann extravaganza that even features stencil coloring (although pretty bad in some places: highlighting Casanova in red and white usually smears other characters in a bilious all-over green). The settings, including real Venetian and fake Russian exteriors, are fabulous; the interiors are sumptuous; the costumes and powdered wigs are superb (I'm happy to have finally discovered what makes farthingales stick out so absurdly on both sides).

Alexandre Volkoff directs magnificently. Mosjoukine is long in the tooth but full of commanding force. I struggled to keep the women distinct - those wigs and the clown-white makeup were an identity handicap for me - but they were all competent, while the main male supporting actors managed to stay just this side of farcical.

Providing one can overlook its biographical inaccuracies this is a gloriously entertaining piece.

As the title character Ivan Mozzukhin is wonderfully seedy and combines a lightness of touch with the look of a sexual predator who encounters precious little resistance. This great actor's sense of comedy is very much to the fore in the scene where he gives a manicure to crackpot Czar Peter 111 played by the excellent Rudolf Kleine-Rogge. The eagle-eyed might spot an uncredited young Michel Simon as a buffoonish soldier.

Venice of course loomed large in Casanova's life and the images of that city, especially during carnival time, are simply stunning. The art direction is superlative and as a bonus, rather than the curse of a totally incongruous 'specially composed' score that blights so many silent film restorations, we have one by maestro Georges Delerue which suits the material admirably.

Mozzukhin and director Alexandr Volkoff were a formidable team and this is arguably their finest achievement.

The legendary libertine comes to life in this mammoth, late silent French production, resurrected by the Cinemathéque François and restored to its original brilliance, complete with hand tinted costumes and fireworks in the climactic festival scenes. The panoramic location photography and lavish re-creation of decadent 18th century Venice make the film a visually spectacular, picaresque epic, following the title character through various chases, rescues, romantic liaisons, and hairbreadth escapes, spanning the continent from Italy to Russia and back again. With his athletic build and hypnotic gaze (the better to make women swoon) the celebrated lover is made to resemble, at least physically, an odd cross between Buster Keaton and Bela Lugosi's Dracula, but by the end of the film he is transformed from an indulgent ne'er-do-well into a charming and, at times, heroic scoundrel. Variations of the same story have been told many times since, but never with such energy or style.

CASANOVA is yet another one of those European silent films I had heard and read about but never had had the opportunity to watch until now. Until 21st century digital techniques came along, it would have been impossible to see the movie outside of La Cinematique Francaise and even then it wouldn't have looked as it does in this incredible restoration. Especially dazzling are the Venice Carnival sequences at the end of the movie which features the original hand stenciled colors which were preserved and enhanced. In addition, a brand new orchestral score has been commissioned for this release, composed by Gunther A. Buchwald, which admirably suits the action and contains traces of Monteverdi and Vivaldi.

The settings are sumptuous and the costumes are lavish so it's quite evident no expense was spared by the filmmakers in turning this story of the famous lover into a major epic. The scenes set in Saint Petersburg at the ascension of Catherine the Great are especially noteworthy and then there's the one and only Rudolf Klein-Rogge (METROPOLIS, DR MABUSE) as Catherine's husband, the mad Czar Peter III. Unfortunately in trying to create an epic CASANOVA, director Alexandre Volkoff allows certain scenes to go on for too long which caused my interest to lag from time to time. At 240 minutes this epic easily could have been a half-an-hour shorter.

Lead actor Ivan Mosjoukine, a Russian emigre' from the Russian Revolution like director Volkoff, had already made his mark in French cinema during the mid-1920s, having been the star of several films for their company Films Albatros. Several of those films can be found in an earlier Flicker Alley release from 2013 entitled FRENCH MASTERWORKS: RUSSIAN EMIGRES IN PARIS 1924-1929, a set that I can highly recommend. I also highly recommend CASANOVA for the sets, the costumes and the performances although, as mentioned earlier, the movie runs a bit long. Still it's a remarkable experience for fans of silent movies and deserves to be seen...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.