France
Short Film | Drama | Silent | 38m
Dir: Dimitri Kirsanoff | Scr: Dimitri Kirsanoff | DP: Léonce Crouan & Dimitri Kirsanoff | Prod: Dimitri Kirsanoff | Mus: Paul Mercer (2005) | Ed: Dimitri Kirsanoff
Cast: Nadia Sibirskaïa, Yolande Beaulieu, Guy Belmont, Jean Pasquier
Capsule review | 217 words | 17/08/11 | 1926 Favourites
Following the horrific murder of their parents, two sisters grow up in the eponymous district of Paris in poverty. Whilst they don’t have much, they at least have each other – that is until they become love rivals, when a handsome yet duplicitous young man comes into their lives. Separated, they experience hunger, single parenthood, and prostitution, but are ultimately reconciled and reunited when chance brings them back together. The young man’s fate, however, proves to be much less rosy.
With Kirsanoff’s box of tricks never overwhelming the human drama, this magnificent short film proves to be as emotionally affecting as it is technically dazzling. But what a box of tricks it is! Told without intertitles, it relies on the quality of its imagery to flesh out and drive its slim plot. Roving hand-held camerawork, rapid montage, and glittering superimposition – mostly shot on location – combine to beguilingly poetic effect. But as impressive as writer/director/photographer/editor Kirsanoff’s contribution to the film is, it is Sibirskaïa’s remarkable turn that stays with you the longest. Delivered with an understatement and subtlety rarely seen in silent cinema, her performance proves to be very, very moving. Paul Mercer's haunting 2005 score also adds greatly to the film's overall appeal.
A sensual, poetic, and thoroughly affecting short film, delivered with great élan and technical wizardry.
1000 Nights in the Dark: a collection of reviews of the single sentence, capsule, short, medium, and long variety, varying in length from fifty to a thousand-plus words, documenting my personal, exploratory journey through cinephilia.
