Abnégation

I had never heard of The Dragon Painter and decided to watch it. I'm glad I did. It is a beautiful film, almost devoid of the clichés of silent-era acting (broad mannerisms, excessive mugging, etc) that make many silent films so comical to audiences today.

The lead actor is Sessue Hayakawa, who many film fans may remember as the Pirate Captain in the Disney version of Swiss Family Robinson or from Bridge on the River Kwai. Here he delivers a great performance as a "mad" artist that is at times comical and tragic.

The cinematography and art direction are wonderful, as is the soundtrack.

If I have one complaint it is that the inter-titles play too long on the screen. But this is a minor quibble.

A simple tale of madness, loss, redemption and ultimately love, I can't recommend this film highly enough.

This is a lyrical, visually arresting Japanese fairy-tale about a mad artist who is under the impression that the princess of his dreams lurks in an enchanted lake which has turned her into a dragon. SESSUE HAYAKAWA is the intense young man who becomes the protégé of a painter who is looking for new talent. When the man threatens to walk away, the painter reveals that he has a daughter whom he passes off as the princess the painter is looking for.

The trick works and before you know it, the two young people fall in love. But the art of painting eludes him once he has found his lost princess and therein lies the crux of the plot. How will he get it back unless she gives up her life so that her loss will be his gain?

It's an intriguing premise and it's artfully crafted from the very opening scene with outdoor backgrounds photographed in Yosemite to give an authentic feel to the settings. The print shown on TCM is in fairly good condition considering the age and the tinted effects for moonlight give it a haunting spell.

SESSUE HAYAKAWA makes a convincing mad genius and TSURU AOKI is fine as the princess of his dreams, in real life, his wife.

Summing up: For silent film fans, well worth watching with an appropriate background score and acting that is more natural than the usual silent screen technique you might expect. The photography throughout is on the artistic side.

The film produced by Hayakawa's own production company Hayworth indeed has a different "look" from the contemporaneous Orientalist productions of Hollywood. Although it does fulfill the almost obligatory casting of Caucasian actors playing yellowface, Edward Peil Sr.'s Japanese art master Kano Indara doesn't seem at all attempt to be "authentic" oriental, not to mention to compete with his Japanese/Asian co-actors as one would find with Warner Oland in films such as The Daughter of Dragon and Shanghai Express. Sessue Hayakawa and Tsuru Aoki are without the doubt the focus of this film. The scenic design also avoids the extravagant Orientalist/art deco ornaments popular at that time, opting for a simple interior design, while lavishing on the natural landscapes framed as quintessential Japanese (despite the fact that they were shot in California). Moreover, the Japaneseness of this film has something to do with the occasional violation of the classical Hollywood editing rules; for instance, the eye-line match in the scene in which the surveyor finds out the talent of the dragon painter by the waterfall is completely off, creating a sense of spatial disorientation that predates Ozu.

As a sidenote, Hayakawa's madman also foresees the famous acting of Toshiro Mifune.

"The Dragon Painter" is an interesting silent film; it's about a painter, his art and, of course for the drama, his love story, which I've found to be a promising setup in various films. Among other silent films, Carl Dreyer's "Michael" (1924) and some of the films by Yevgeni Bauer, mostly "The Dying Swan" (1917), come to mind as other worthwhile explorations of these themes. In being art about art, it naturally lends itself to self-reflexivity. In "The Dragon Painter", we don't actually get to see much of the artist's paintings--besides a couple sketches he tosses over a waterfall and a painting at the exhibition--but that's probably for the best, rather than having imitations shown off instead of art. The art in this film is in the photography of landscapes and nature (waterfalls, horizons overlooking canyons, lush gardens and such), which is pictorially beautiful (inexplicably, this film's cinematographer Frank D. Williams learned his craft at Keystone of all places). For one scene, however, a moonlit sky is actually a painted backdrop, which I think nicely reinforces the narrative's self-reflexivity.

In addition to the art about art, Sessue Hayakawa gives an outstanding performance as the painter. I haven't seen him so lively before, although I've only been privileged to see a couple others of his silent films thus far and "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957). He was great in "The Cheat" (1915), but he displayed a different sort of acting, characterization there. Hayakawa in "The Dragon Painter" seems closer to Toshirô Mifune, of Akira Kurosawa's films, than to the Hayakawa of "The Cheat" or "The Bridge on the River Kwai". It's appropriate and displays his versatility well. Sessue's real-life wife, Tsuru Aoki, who steals the other film, "The Wrath of the Gods" (1914) available on the same DVD away from him, is also good. Her role in this one could've been rather thankless, but she makes the most of it. On the other hand, this isn't a perfect gem; too many intertitles and some overly quick shot successions seem to be it's most significant weaknesses. Regardless, I'd recommend this for being one of the better films of its time--or, rather, for being a good movie.

A mentally disturbed artist (Sessue Hayakawa), from the mountains of Japan, is convinced that his fiancee, a beautiful princess, has been captured and turned into a dragon. His obsession with his fictitious loss, leads to his artistic inspiration.

It isn't until a young surveyor, (Toyo Fujita) comes across some of Tatsu's artwork, that his genius is discovered. The surveyor then informs the famous artist, Kano Indara about his discovery, who immediately agrees to meet Tatsu.

Indara, his daughter Ume-Ko, and Undobuchida soon realise that they cannot persuade Tetsu to come down from the mountains to further his talent as an artist, without a ploy.

Ume-Ko consequently dresses up as a Princess, and the promise of Tatsu being re-united with his long lost love, lures him into Kano Indara's house. Of course, the family realises that Tatsu has a lot of uncivilized and crazy habits which he needs to get rid of, if he is going to fit into civilized Japanese society.

Overall, the movie is a very sweet and interesting piece. There is great use of color-tinting throughout the film, which perfectly reflects the mood and theme. Hayakawa does an awesome job at playing a madman- a good combination of dramatic and comical acting.

Although it is not the best silent movie I've ever seen, it is definitely worth watching. It's a lovely little fairy tale which puts a smile on your face!