For a film that combines so many elements of avant-garde European film-making (surrealism, expressionism, futurism) and is a feast of different non-realistic styles, 1923 is a very early date and, although both expressionism and futurism had a following in Russia, there is not much in pre-revolutionary Russian cinema that would lead one to expect this. In Italy there had been the futurist film Thaïs as early in 1916; in Germany Richard Oswald had already produced The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Genuine in 1920 but in France Marcel L'Herbier's major films (L'Argent and L'Inhumaine) were still a few years in the future although he had already made the much less impressive Le Bercail (1919) and the short Prométhée
.banquier (1921) and, although she was already a known film-maker, Germaine Dulac's first really memorable film (La souriante Madame Beudet) did not appear until this same year, 1923.
So the fact that Mozzuhkhin, freshly arrived from Russia and with no experience as a director (apart from the rather conventional comedy L'Enfant du carnaval also made in France in 1921)should have directed such an imaginative feast as this in 1923 is really rather remarkable. One should add that the set-decorator, Pierre Schild was also at the beginning of his career (he would later work on the Dali/Buñuel films Le Chien andalou and L'Age d'Or).
Perhaps the previous film most similar in style to this was Artur Robison's Warning Shadows which had been first shown in Berlin just the month before (even if the moral of this Mozzhukhin film turns out to be rather different).
Nathalie Lissenko,Mozzhukhin's actress-wife was by no means "hideous", but it is true that she does "look a fright" (more or less literally) and it is worth observing that this was itself an element in the art nouveau/art déco style of the period. One finds the same look with Navratilova in one the extremely rare US examples of an avant-garde film (Salomé, also 1923) and again with Jean Renoir's wife (Catherine Hessling) who appears in some of his early films even though she was reputed a beauty and had been one of his father's models. To appreciate the style, it might help to think in terms of some modern equivalent ("punk" is the obvious one). The style was already outdated by the 1930s and Elsa Lanchester's "look" as the Bride of Frankenstein might be considered a parody of the style.
So the fact that Mozzuhkhin, freshly arrived from Russia and with no experience as a director (apart from the rather conventional comedy L'Enfant du carnaval also made in France in 1921)should have directed such an imaginative feast as this in 1923 is really rather remarkable. One should add that the set-decorator, Pierre Schild was also at the beginning of his career (he would later work on the Dali/Buñuel films Le Chien andalou and L'Age d'Or).
Perhaps the previous film most similar in style to this was Artur Robison's Warning Shadows which had been first shown in Berlin just the month before (even if the moral of this Mozzhukhin film turns out to be rather different).
Nathalie Lissenko,Mozzhukhin's actress-wife was by no means "hideous", but it is true that she does "look a fright" (more or less literally) and it is worth observing that this was itself an element in the art nouveau/art déco style of the period. One finds the same look with Navratilova in one the extremely rare US examples of an avant-garde film (Salomé, also 1923) and again with Jean Renoir's wife (Catherine Hessling) who appears in some of his early films even though she was reputed a beauty and had been one of his father's models. To appreciate the style, it might help to think in terms of some modern equivalent ("punk" is the obvious one). The style was already outdated by the 1930s and Elsa Lanchester's "look" as the Bride of Frankenstein might be considered a parody of the style.