Pandora's Box is a curious little film. Twice I have now seen it, and I will not deny that through many of the first six acts I became a little wearisome of it, waiting for it to pick up its pace and continue on. But the last two acts are so engaging and full of drama that they make up for some of the slower moments in the earlier parts.
What really magnetizes the film together, though, is Louise Brooks, who stars as the main character Lulu. She has a presence that I do not think I have seen equaled by any other silent screen actress. When she is on screen, she is magnetic, transfixing you with her odd haircut that seems to accentuate her soft features (made possible through soft focus, of course). She is absent for most of the film's second act, and it suffers without her.
The plot can not really be summarized in a sensible way, but essentially it is about Lulu, her seductive power over men, and how she sinks deeper and deeper into despair. She begins by seeing "clients", and her most reliable is an old man who at one point claims to be her father, but you are sure he could not be.
She is put into a show and, through a series of events becomes involved in an accidental murder, goes on the run, and ends in one of the best scenes of silent cinema as she unwittingly invites Jack the Ripper into her run down living place. Her beauty stops the Ripper from using his knife, but soon he succumbs, and Lulu's hand goes limp.
Whenever I watch a silent movie, I find I usually tune out the track that Criterion or whomever has composed specifically for it. Of course the music effects my perception of what is happening on screen in a purely visceral level, but in my head I usually create other atmospheres to go along with what is happening. In act seven, in a scene at a bar I imagine glasses clinking and people cheerily talking, or when Lulu succumbs to Jack the Ripper I imagine her last breath escaping her lips.
That is probably the most interesting aspect of silent movies: they are the most pure form of film there is, because without the noisy scores, they are just film. And they seem the most fitting version of the format because film is in and of itself an illusion of rapid images creating fluid movement. Sound, of course, has made films better and a great sound design will enhance and enrich the movie. But there is something about letting the movie tell its own story, and silent movies are challenging for any person in today's society.
And Pandora's Box is a film that would only work in silence. If these characters spoke, the situations would be come ridiculous, outrageous, and downright silly. But here, melodrama is straight drama. Few films would only work in silence, and here is one of them. Anything by the silent clowns Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, and Harold Lloyd I would also include in that category.
The title of the film refers to a Greek myth, about a woman named Pandora who like Lulu was beautiful and happy. The gods gave her a box, and told her never to open it up. Sadly the curious thing did, and unleashed greed, sadness, anger, and a bevy of ill feelings upon our world. That Lulu mirrors this character is without saying, and that she unwittingly spreads lust and greed makes this one of the most unique adaptations of Greek Mythology.
This film, while dull in a few areas, is ultimately a beautiful work of silent filmmaking at its peak, when sound films were permeating every inch of American cinema. Louise Brooks alone makes the movie worthwhile, and stands out for me as one of the most unique films from the silent era.
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