I had never seen a Louise Brooks or Valeska Gert film before. I thought this one was very good. The plot is basic but the atmosphere is what makes this movie--very slow, deliberate, lots of long close-ups, and a pairing of repression and hysteria, all in 1929. The print I saw was mostly a French one; perhaps no complete print now exists? I saw this film as part of a special series, which included a talk afterward. The speaker said that the ending was imposed by the censors--Pabst wanted one in which Thymiane returns to the brothel and takes it over. My favorite scene was the one in the reformatory, in which Valeska Gert bangs the gong.
Review of Diary of a Lost Girl
