by Allan Fish
(Germany 1929 111m) DVD1/2
Aka. Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen
Deform school
p Georg W.Pabst d Georg W.Pabst w Rudolph Leonhardt novel Margaret Böhme ph Sepp Allgeier, Fritz Arno Wagner ed uncredited art Ernö Metzner, Emil Hasler
Louise Brooks (Thymian Henning), Josef Ravensky (Robert Henning), Fritz Rasp (Meinert), Edith Meinhard (Erika), Franziska Kinz (Meta), Vera Pawlova (Aunt Frieda), André Roanne (Count Nicholas Osdorff), Sybille Schmitz (Elisabeth),
The second and final collaboration between director G.W.Pabst and star Louise Brooks was for a time regarded as very much the inferior of the two. Rumours persisted for decades that it wasn’t so much unfinished as deliberately finished early. Writer Rudolf Leonhardt maintained his script was left half finished and the film does indeed end rather abruptly, but Diary remains a film so full of fascination, visual beauty and seedy subtexts as to beggar belief for its day.
Thymian is the virginal daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning who is being prepared for confirmation, to celebrate which she is given a present; namely a diary. On the self same day, her beloved housekeeper Elisabeth leaves in mysterious circumstances and she is replaced by the insidious Meta, who becomes the mistress to Thymian’s father. Desperate to find out what happened to Elisabeth, she agrees to meet her father’s assistant Meinert, only to pass out and be carried to her room by him and raped. Cut forward nine months and Thymian has given birth and Meta gets Thymian’s diary opened to find out the identity of the father. Refusing to marry Meinert, after seeing her child taken to a sinister midwife, Thymian is sent to a terrible correctional institute for girls, run like a prison by a distinctly lesbian mistress and her creepy male assistant. Soon she becomes desperate to escape.
And we’re not even halfway through at that point! She goes on to escape, join a brothel, marry a count and return to the reform school a dignitary on an inspection panel. And to think of Leonhardt’s claims of seriously unfinished business on top of that, no wonder audiences and critics of the day were left thunderstruck. No other film captured the hopelessness of a woman’s fate like Diary. One thinks early in the piece that it would be impossible to find a nastier piece of work than Rasp’s relishably evil Meinert, until one is introduced to those in charge of the reform school, including a tall man with a bald head and a tendency towards Uriah Heep-like wringing of the hands. If I mention to Buffy fans The Gentlemen, they’ll simply reply “capiche.”
Indeed, it’s the scenes in the institute that chill most. We are first introduced to it upon Thymian’s arrival, and find the girls positioned round the table, waiting to be given permission to have their soup, in a distaff version of the workhouse opening to Oliver Twist, with the mistress moving her head back and forth like a frightening hybrid of Nazi commandant and Toscanini conducting Rossini. Worse still is the rigorous exercise routine in the dormitory, which is conducted rather like the galley slaves in Ben Hur, so much so that one almost expects to see Jack Hawkins sitting sternly in the corner watching the girls touch their toes. In between such scenes of sadism, we get moments of symbolic heartbreak, such as when Thymian is put in front of some clothes to repair and picks up a baby outfit just hours after seeing her own little girl taken away from her. The whole sequence not only recalls Griffith’s Intolerance, but looks forward to Sagan’s Mädchen in Uniform, Deval’s Club de Femmes and even Bergman’s Port of Call. It might not be a perfect film, not by any means, but Pabst and Brooks make it something special. Brooks in particular may be even better here than as Lulu, her Thymian one of the great lost heroines of silent cinema, her natural, way-ahead-of-its-time style of acting never better utilised. She could say more with a look than most people could with a 500 word speech. On the basis of these two performances, she remains one of the great icons and actresses of world cinema.
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Very good review of a film I’ve just seen in the last 6 weeks or so. It is a strange picture plot-wise as it seems to go in many places at once and covers much ground.
It might not be a perfect film, not by any means, but Pabst and Brooks make it something special. Brooks in particular may be even better here than as Lulu, her Thymian one of the great lost heroines of silent cinema, her natural, way-ahead-of-its-time style of acting never better utilised. She could say more with a look than most people could with a 500 word speech. On the basis of these two performances, she remains one of the great icons and actresses of world cinema.
Well said. For some reason I like her in ‘Prix de Beaute’ the most, and even though it’s a talkie, I never realize she’s talking till the singing at the end. She just seems to make me watch her at all times spell bound and oblivious to her voice.