La Glace à trois faces (1927) - film review

Three very different women are anxiously awaiting the return of their lover and, as they do so, they re-live their recent happiness with him.  Pearl, an English society lady, is swept of her feet by the elegant young financier, but all too soon his love for her turns cold.  A strong-willed Russian sculptress, Athalia, is his next victim.  Finally, an ordinary working class girl succumbs to his charms.  Instead of keeping his appointment with his three lovers, the heartless young Don Giovanni decides instead to spend the day alone in Deauville, driving his brand new sports car.

With the skill of a true master of the silent era, Jean Epstein manages to take a seemingly trite short story by Paul Morand and transform it into a remarkable, truly captivating piece of cinema.   Epstein’s previous experimentation with early cinematic techniques is evident throughout the film which has, as a result, a hugely original visual style.

Epstein’s pre-occupation with the advance of technology is noticeable in the last of the film’s four segments, which is obsessed with a modern motor car.  Indeed, film and car become merged into a single entity as both surge ahead, at an ever increasing pace, towards a startling conclusion.

Also noteworthy is the way in which the director uses a non-linear narrative (involving frequent use of flashbacks) to merge past and present into a dream-like continuum.  This is a style which was subsequently adopted by French New Wave film director Alain Resnais, most notably in his own masterpiece, L’Année dernière a Marienbad (1961).

Perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing and artistically original part of the film is the very final scene.  A hazy, unrecognisable image is glimpsed in a three-sided mirror, overlain with the ghostly reflection of the film’s ‘hero’.  Epstein seems to be hinting that the film is itself a mirror, one in which we may see the folly of our own spurious and ill-fated desires.

© James Travers 2002

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