Film Review
In the late 1910s, early 1920s, Joe May was one of Weimar Germany's most
successful film directors. After establishing his own production company
May-Film, he had a string of hits in the exotic adventure line - these included
such lavish works as the eight-part serial
Die Herrin der Welt (1919),
sumptuous three-part epic
Veritas vincit (1919) and widely acclaimed
diptych
Das indische Grabmal (1921). He ended his career in
Hollywood, helming popular genre fare such as
The House of the Seven Gables
(1940) and
The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Throughout his
long and busy career, May was seldom if ever considered a serious auteur
or innovator along the lines of his contemporaries Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau,
so it is hardly surprising that, popular though his films were in their day,
his name has all but faded from memory.
Even May's worthier films - including
Asphalt, arguably his best film
- met with a lukewarm reception from the critics and he was generally regarded
more as an imitator than as an originator of great art.
Asphalt
certainly shows the influence of May's contemporaries - Lang and G.W. Pabst
in particular - but it does have qualities that set it apart, and it is hard
to name another German film of this era that is so brazenly erotic or so
thoroughly redolent of its time. What makes
Asphalt so significant
is that it is one of the earliest examples of European film noir, and it
clearly represents an important stepping stone between the boldly expressionistic
style of Lang, Pabst and Murnau and the familiar doom-laden aesthetic of
classic American film noir.
The film gets off to a cracking start with a dazzling montage of shots that
instantly convey a sense of the hectic pace of life in modern (circa 1929)
Berlin. A mêlée of long tracking shots takes us right
into the heart of the throbbing metropolis, and some manic use of angled
shots and camera motion creates a vertiginous kaleidoscopic impression of
a city that is constantly in a state of frenzied activity. The Berlin
that May presents is no anonymous urban landscape, but a vast piece of mechanical
apparatus that is in perpetual motion - an apt metaphor it turns out for
the uncontrollable forces that guide the two protagonists in the ensuing
drama to their unhappy destiny.
In its depiction of the spectacular fall from grace of a law-abiding innocent
by a beautiful but wantonly destructive female,
Asphalt effectively
provides a raw template for virtually every film noir drama to come.
The plot is thin, formulaic and contrived to a fault, even for the time in
which the film was made, so don't expect any surprises on the narrative front.
Indeed so perfectly at ease does Betty Amann (an American actress shining
in her first German film) appear in the role of the wickedly calculating
femme fatale that it takes some strain of the imagination to believe
that her character is remotely capable of redemption.
Amann is certainly stunning - an unsettling über-sultry fusion of Louise
Brooks and Josephine Baker at their most seductive - and from the way her
character gracefully slinks her way through the potboiler narrative like
a deadly serpent you can see that she takes a demonic delight in the power
she has over the male sex. But do we really believe that this fiend
in lithe female form is susceptible to deeper feelings? Dare we imagine
that this creature is capable of being transformed by the power of love once
it has been revealed to her? Scarcely - and this is the film's central
weakness. Betty Amann's seductive siren is more vampire than vamp and
it is hard to believe that such a predatory man-eater could be steered back
to the path of virtue by anything less than a dozen strong towropes and an
armada of trucks. Maybe cinema audiences were more gullible - or more
forgiving - back in 1929.
If the 'heroine' (a strange epithet for one so innately vile) feels a tad
two-dimensional, her male 'victim' (a silly little boy unconvincingly made
up as a full-grown man) is doubly so. Gustav Fröhlich had already
proved himself to be a very capable actor in Fritz Lang's
Metropolis (1927) but in
Asphalt
he has his work cut out for him, cast as a rookie cop torn between duty and
desire. It is hardly a fair contest as Fröhlich's character falls
prey to the most irresistible slab of female pulchritude in the northern
hemisphere, and there is a galling inevitably about the ease and rapidity
with which Fröhlich is hooked and seduced by the lethally cunning Amann.
It is no small exaggeration to say that the actor redeems the entire film
with the torrent of conviction he brings to his portrayal as guilt, jealousy
and despair rip apart his character's thin outer shell and reveal the fragile
soul within, one that is cruelly decimated by the most potent and destructive
of emotions.
The plot and characters may be the stuff of low grade melodrama, but the
exemplary performances from the two charismatic lead actors give it a striking
sense of reality and the film packs a powerful punch in spite of its jarring
contrivances.
Asphalt is a film that beguiles from its first
shot and goes on enchanting right up until its final devastating image.
Joe May should be acknowledged for his deft artistic handling of the fairly
routine subject matter, but if plaudits are to be handed out his cinematographer
Günther Rittau and set designer Erich Kettelhut are equally deserving
of praise, for they contribute just as much to the film's enchanting visual
design.
Rittau's work on Lang's
Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's
Der blaue Engel (1930) has
been widely lauded, but his contribution to
Asphalt is no less impressive.
Of particular note are his masterfully composed close-ups, which make
inter-titles superfluous and reveal so much of the protagonists' innermost
feelings. If
Asphalt ultimately overcomes our scepticism and
persuades us that a bad girl can be redeemed by love, this is in no small measure
down to the depth of human feeling that Günther Rittau allows to percolate
through every shot (helped by two incredibly gifted performers). One
of the last silent films to be made in Germany,
Asphalt is so visually
expressive, so steeped in genuine emotion that the absence of sound barely
registers.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.