Married carnival performers are subjected to the abuses of their employer in this silent film gem that has not received as much attention as it deserves. When the boss' unwanted advances on the wife are refused, he taunts a lion until it nearly kills her. But the other performers assist in a unique plot for revenge. Jaque Catelain directs and stars in this film made for influential French director Marcel L'Herbier's production company. Some sources also list L'Herbier as co-director, as he is credited here. The film boasts some rapid-fire editing techniques that were decades ahead of its time.
Inspired by W.G. Sebald’s book and based on WWII archive footage, the film puts forward the question is it morally acceptable to use civilian population as a means of war Is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals The question remains as relevant today, as it was 80 years ago, and its urgency is tragically manifested in the current events.
This is an interesting yet bizarre little tale of a fictional (as far as I know, anyway) experiment performed during the Stalin-controlled years in the USSR. The main character is changed from a woman into a man. This is part of a larger plan to change more women into men and have a stronger work-forcearmy, etc. It's a very in-depth character study of the main character, who tries to fit into a world that she (now 'he') doesn't really understand, especially since she's now a man ... Stalin dislikes the results of the experiments and has the scientist killed. The main character then goes off to live a life as a simple, unknown everyday Soviet, but is inexplicably drawn into larger and larger schemes (somewhat reminiscent of Forrest Gump in that way). (s)He has run-ins with different important characters, including his ex-boyfriend from his days of being a woman, as well as going on a demented quest for the nurse with whom he possibly fell in love after the operation... However, he is trapped in his life as an important Soviet married man, and in the end makes a huge sacrifice for his country (unwillingly), and the movie goes from there to an ending that is possibly happy, yet still somehow incredibly depressing.
