Reviews of Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box

Posted : 2 weeks, 3 days ago on 22 October 2009 03:09 (A review of Pandora's Box)

Pandora’s Box should not have worked as well as it did. The storyline is pure melodrama. To put it more bluntly: it’s faintly ridiculous stuff that wouldn’t have been out of place in a soap opera. But it does work, and that is all thanks to the performance of Louise Brooks. With her severe black bob, perfectly straight eyebrows, cupid’s bow mouth and blank face she might just have been one of the three best silent film actresses. She was certainly one of the most striking images, and much of the film is all about her face and how she reacts. Brooks was not a throw-yourself-about kind of silent film star, she was withdrawn, almost neurotically insular. There is something of an early Method about her acting. She is too modern, and there is something of a vague autobiography about her character’s journey. From the early scenes where she’s a carefree and vacuous flapper to the midsection where she’s burnt her bridges and dabbles with obscurity to the end where she becomes obscure, penniless, doomed, tragic and pays for her crimes – Brooks gives it her all and then some. Silent film is positively filled with great foreign films – most of it German, much like this one – and with Louise Brooks’ performance, this definitely ranks very highly on any great film list.

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