Film Review
August Strindberg's 1900 play
The
Dance of Death (a.k.a.
Dödsdansen)
is given a suitably dour rendering in this stifling post-war melodrama,
the third of four films directed by Marcel Cravenne. Like his
brother Georges Cravenne, famous for creating the Césars Awards
ceremony, Marcel Cravenne is best known for his television work, to
which he devoted himself for thirty years, beginning with the American
series
Foreign Intrigue
(1952-1955). Although overshadowed by his subsequent work as one
of France's most prolific television directors, Cravenne's films for
the cinema have a distinctive feel and some,
La Danse de mort being a case in
point, deserve to be much better known than they are. Cravenne
was not only a skilled technician he also had a penchant for character
detail, as this film amply bears out.
Just as Strindberg had conceived his original play,
La Danse de mort is the blackest of
black comedies, a darkly humorous portrayal of a marriage that has
turned murderously sour. In one memorable scene, the wife (Denise
Vernac) attempts to kill her husband (Erich von Stroheim) by
accelerating the tempo to a dance he is happily performing for the
amusement of a guest. The malicious intent can be felt in every
note that the wife hammers out on the living room piano and what begins
as an amiable entertainment soon becomes a sadomasochistic duel to the
death. Both Von Stroheim and Vernac (who were incidentally
real-life partners at the time) bring a harrowing realism and depth to
their portrayals, so whilst their characters are hideous grotesques
bordering on cartoonish insanity we are compelled to sympathise with
them both. This is what marriage can do to you, if you happen to
be stuck in an island prison for years on end with nothing to do other
than shoot the occasional escaping detainee.
Cravenne not only directed the film (with admirable flair), he also
scripted the adaptation of Strindberg's play, in collaboration with
Jacques-Laurent Bost (brother of the famous screenwriter Pierre Bost)
and Erich von Stroheim, who was once a great film director in his own
right (author of such films as
Blind Husbands (1919)
and
Foolish Wives (1922)).
The brutally dysfunctional relationship between the two
main protagonists, Edgar and Théa, is emphasised by the austere
fortress setting, which becomes the bleakest of metaphors for a
loveless marriage. A piercing sense of hopelessness permeates almost every
frame of this film, and we cannot help but feel the excruciating
despair of the two people who long for escape, to put an end to a union
that is more insufferable than any prison sentence. And then,
just when the wish is granted, murderous loathing gives way to abject
desolation and, in a moment of blinding revelation, we see just why the
mutually destructive couple were unable to part. They really were
in love - Strindberg's idea of a joke.
© James Travers 2014
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
A proud military man, Edgar is now the director of a prison fortress
located on a small island in the Adriatic. He runs the prison
with an iron hand and is prepared to shoot dead any prisoner who
attempts to escape. He is as much a prisoner on the island as the
men in his charge, and so is his wife Théa and daughter
Rita. Married for over twenty-five years, Edgar and Théa
have grown to hate one another and each longs for the other to
die. Knowing that she can never escape, Théa encourages
Rita when she falls in love with a political prisoner and is ready to
lend her support when the couple decide to flee the island.
Edgar's strained relationship with his wife further deteriorates when
an old friend of hers, Kurt, arrives at the fortress and advises its
governor that he will soon die unless he changes his mode of
living. This is just the piece of good news Théa has been
waiting for...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.