The cinetrix redressed a gap in her celluloid education in the company of FOC Andy yesterday afternoon. Together we took in the bone-chillingly cold machinations of Pabst's amoral fairy tale Pandora's Box chez Brattle, itself freezing cold [although that may have been because we were directly under the air conditioner].
My, Louise Brooks was a stone-cold fox, accent again on the cold. Her little round-heels Lulu moves blithely from cabaret to courtroom to drafty attic garret and from embrace to embrace with every hair of her iconic sleek black bob in place. That is, until she meets with an untimely demise too incredible to recount, much less spoil for the uninitiated.
There's always a sick thrill that comes when watching pre-Code decadence, something akin to self-absorbed astonishment that these far-away folks in black and white might have invented loucheness and sin before the coming of sound. For reals, get an eyeful of Alice Roberts' glowering dykey Countess Anna Geschwitz dancing close with Lulu the blushing bride and you'll see what I mean.
Thanks to the good offices of restorers at the George Eastman House, a new[ish] print or two of Pandora's Box appears to be making the rounds of art houses and festivals this summer. Do seek it out, whether you've seen it before or not. The opening credits alone are worth the price of admission--I leaned over to Andy and confided how I wanted a calling card that read simply "Rodrigo Quast, [Crap. What was the missing adjective, Andy?] acrobat."
A word of caution, though: Save it for a sweltering day and a matinee, cuz you're sure to come out shivering into the late-afternoon sun.
