Abwege (1928) - film review

Neglected by her workaholic husband Thomas, Irene Beck plans to elope with her secret admirer, the artist Walter Frank.  When Thomas, a respected lawyer, manages to thwart this scheme, Irene takes her revenge by slipping away one evening to a debauched Berlin nightclub.  Influenced by drugs and drink, she succumbs to the earthy charms of a young boxer.  When this new life promises her so much, can she ever return to her old life of staid respectability?

This film, in which Brigitte Helm gives a daringly realistic portrayal of a sexually frustrated bourgeois wife, evoked great controversy when it was released in 1928.  It is unusual in at least two respects.  Firstly, it explores the feelings of its central characters with unprecedented psychological depth, effectively contrasting their intense inner moods with the superficial world in which they live, reflecting a struggle between desire and security, freedom and stability.  Secondly, it uses a voyeuristic style of camera work which, although used by many directors since, was virtually unknown in the silent era.  This cinematographic approach emphasises the conflict in Irene’s mind between the inner and outer world, between thoughts of primal lust and reasoned awareness of social conventions.

Although the film doesn’t quite have the impact and dramatic cohesion of some of Pabst’s later films, it has a great deal to commend it.  There’s Helm’s commanding performance of a woman visibly tortured by her ferocious sexual urge, a set piece scene in a night club which conveys the decadence and moral decay of German society in the late 1920s, and some exquisitely beautiful photography which is subtly influenced by the expressionistic style.  That the film is far less well known than Pabst’s other work is down to the fact that one reel of the original film was lost.  Recently, the film has been meticulously restored, using a surviving French print of poor quality.

© James Travers 2007

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