Film Review
Here's a case of a filmmaker trying to have his cake and eat it.
In the pre-Hollywood, German phase of his career, Ernst Lubitsch's
films broadly divide into two categories: outlandish farces and
extravagant historical epics.
Sumurun
is a film that straddles both of these genres, having both the anarchic
fun of Lubitsch's more manic sex comedies and the stunning production
values of his grander period dramas. It also stands apart as
something quite different, a completely unhinged send-up of the Arabian
Nights-style melodrama.
Sumurun
is so frenetic, so off-the-wall, that it is hard to take any of it
seriously, yet it is great fun and amply demonstrates both
Lubitsch's flair for farce and his mastery of filmmaking
technique. As if that was not enough, Lubitsch even has a not
insignificant acting role in the film, playing (somewhat appropriately)
a hideously deformed sex-starved hunchback.
Sumurun originated as a stage
play which Lubitsch had directed and acted in during his time with
theatre director Max Reinhardt. The star of the play was the
famous Polish actress Pola Negri, who reprises her role of the nubile
dancer in the film. Negri had in fact starred in the original
Polish version of the play, which had originally drawn her to the
attention of Reinhardt. Lubitsch was a great admirer of Negri
and would employ her in his German films, most notably
Madame Du Barry (1919), the
film that brought international fame to both the director and the
actress.
No one would describe
Sumurun
as Lubitsch's most sophisticated or best-structured film. In
fact, you need almost superhuman powers of concentration to be able to
follow every twist and turn of the über-convoluted plot. Yet
the film has a great deal of charm and is outrageously funny in
places. When one of the Sheik's women tries to elicit support from a
eunuch she taunts him with the remark, "Well, you want to be a man,
don't you?" The eunuchs themselves are a spectacle to behold, a
cross-between a heavyweight wrestler and a camp male hairdresser,
swathed in what looks suspiciously like the living room curtains
from a 1970s British sitcom.
Lubitsch contributes his fair share of laughs as a lovelorn hunchback
who is so ugly that he would have a job chatting up an acne-infested
gargoyle. If you ever wondered why Lubitsch never made it
as a screen actor, you only have to watch his mock suicide scene in
this film. Not quite sure whether he is Shylock or Quasimodo,
Lubitsch twists the pathos dial so far that it almost comes off in his
hand, deluging the set with enough prime cuts of ham to open a chain of
delicatessens. And as if this show of histrionic excess was
not enough, Paul Wegener wades in and does the expressionistic monster
bit, just as effectively as he did in
Der
Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920), admittedly more for
laughs than frights.
As wonderful as Lubitsch and Wegener are in this film, both are totally
eclipsed by Pola Negri who, in the most uninhibited of her wild cat
turns, ignites the screen with her lethal concoction of beauty,
charisma and sex appeal. No wonder all the male characters in the
story (eunuchs excluded) are falling over themselves to possess
her. She perfectly embodies the notion of the untameable
temptress that no man can resist and which no women can deny wanting to
be. In
Sumurun, Negri
is the original and definitive femme fatale - at least that is the
impression you get judging by the number of corpses that litter the
stage after she has had her fun. That damn snake in the
garden of Eden has a lot to answer for.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Ernst Lubitsch film:
Die Bergkatze (1921)
Film Synopsis
The Sheik of an Oriental province is incensed when he discovers that
one of his wives, Sumurun, has been making overtures to a cloth
merchant, Nur-Al-Din. He is about to take a swift revenge when
one of his eunuchs distracts him with the news that a party of
travelling minstrels has arrived in town, with a beautiful dancing
girl. Eager to add another beauty to his already crowded harem,
the Sheik heads off to check out the new dancer and, sure enough, she
is a stunner. Unfortunately, his son finds her just as attractive
and intends to claim her for his own. All this upsets the
dancer's most fervent admirer, a pitiful lute-playing hunchback, who
has tried without success to woo the dancer. With so many
libidinous men chasing after one lascivious young woman, things cannot
end well...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.