Review of Le brasier ardent

Nathalie Lissenko, whoever said she could be a leading lady in a film? She is so ugly the idea of two men falling in love with her is ridiculous. Even a rat or a snake would not fall in love with such a creature. On top of that (and on top of her), she has the most ridiculous hairdo in the entire history of the world. I can't believe that frump made 38 films. However, it appears that she was the wife of the writer and director of this film, Ivan Mosjoukine, or Mozzhukin, or however you want to spell it, so all one can do is feel sorry for him. This is a such a deeply weird film, it is not really enjoyable, but anything of that age which is weird qualifies for the category of 'interesting'. The film begins with an interminable dream sequence which lasts for several minutes, and one thinks the tedious images will never end. It was probably very daring for 1922, and audiences may have been spellbound at the time, or at least let us hope so. The film then has a silly story pursued in a surrealistic manner, with echoes of the hit serial 'Fantomas', that is, with mysterious detectives who can do the impossible, and who pose for the cameras so that we can admire their profiles. The leading man is called 'Detective Z', and he never stops showing us his profile, his powerful gaze, and whatever else he thinks makes him special, though he is very yawn-inducing. But wait! It turns out that this very boring man is none other than the writer and director and husband of the frump! So he had clearly had years of practice in looking at his wife without falling over in a fright. There is rather a lot of glaring from everyone in the film, which was obviously fashionable in such films then, or at least amongst the White Russians of Paris at the time. The action is set in Paris, and there are some interesting shots of Paris in 1922, though all on the Right Bank, which is pretty much what one would have expected then, just about what it is like today with less traffic, some old cars, and some men in top hats. One curiosity is that people repeatedly jump in and out of moving cabs! There are a few dramatically composed shots which have truly remarkable depth of field (one shows the leading lady in the foreground and far away a man walking away from her down a street, both in focus; another good one is on a grand staircase). I don't know why this film is called 'The Burning Cauldron', as the only thing burning from my point of view was my time going up in smoke.