Starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner and Francis Lederer
Produced by Nero-Film AG
Lulu is an aspiring performer, but currently makes due as the mistress of a newspaper editor. The editor, Dr. Schön, catches Lulu with another man and tells her he is marrying another woman. As a consolation prize, Schön will get Lulu booked into a variety show run by his son Alwa.
Opening night comes and Schön brings his fiancée Charlotte to the performance. Lulu can't stand to see him with another woman and refuses to go in stage. When the editor goes backstage to convince her to perform, Lulu seduces him and Charlotte catches Schön in Lulu's embrace. Schön resigns himself to marrying Lulu.
On the night of their wedding reception, Schön finds Lulu talking with a couple of friends from her old life. Enraged, the husband grabs a gun and chases all of the guests out. He hands the gun to Lulu and demands that she kill herself. She refuses, they struggle, the gun goes off and Lulu is left standing.
At the murder trial, Lulu is found guilty, but Alwa helps her escape. On the run, they take refuge in a ship turned gambling den and eventually head to London. Wherever they go, unsavory characters meet them at every turn, blackmailing them over Lulu's past.
Can the couple escape from their increasingly dire circumstances? And what do a lesbian countess and Jack the Ripper have to do with this story?
Pandora's Box features some virtuoso camera work courtesy of acclaimed director G.W. Pabst. It is anchored by a lead performance by Louise Brooks that is brilliant in its subtlety. Unfortunately, it also follows a script and structure that wring most of the emotion and life from the film.
That Pabst knows his way around a camera comes as no surprise. His previous work in The Love of Jeanne Ney showed he could establish character and mood as well as Alfred Hitchcock. In Pandora's Box, the director constantly plays with light and shadow and the film literally becomes darker as it moves toward its climax.
This is my introduction to Louise Brooks, but she is instantly captivating. Her every smile and movement feels so fluid and realistic, her performance would be right at home in a modern film. There is a restraint to her acting that makes her leap off the screen in a way that all of the wild gestures of her contemporaries cannot seem to capture. From the moment we see her, she's a star.
Sadly, the script utterly fails her. The film centers on eight "acts," which are really eight individual moments in Lulu's life. Because we are leaping through her timeline in fits and starts, we never get a moment to ground ourselves in her reality. Why is she marrying Schön? Does Alwa really love her and vice versa? I'm never clear why anyone is doing what they are doing except that it is what the screenplay demanded.
The other impact of the staccato script is that we don't get to see how other characters are evolving. For example, there is a countess friend who helps Lulu at a critical moment. It is implied she has a romantic interest in Lulu. Do we get to see why or what comes of it? Of course not. The film is principally interested in moving from story beat to story beat.
(*SPOILER*) If films are really about their end, this is one that really needs to be talked about. Lulu encounters a man in an alley and goes off with him. The man turns out to be someone very much like Jack the Ripper. He at first resists his urges, but ultimately grabs a knife and kills Lulu as Alwa seemingly walk off to join the Salvation Army.
Now, what are we to take from that? Was her fate deserved by any of her earlier actions? Or is the nature of life a series of random interactions that any moment may bring literal salvation or doom? If I cared a wit about these characters, I'd give these heady questions further consideration. But I don't, so I won't.
Pandora's Box boasts some of the industry's most accomplished artists, but rather than place them on a track and let them go, they are stuck with a treadmill of a script. Lots of energy expended, but it never seems to go anywhere. Its worth watching for Pabst and Brooks, but only for about 15 minutes. You won't get anymore from it by hanging around longer.
** out of *****
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