VARIETE    1925 Directed by Ewald André Dupont 95 minutes German Intertitles with English subtitles

Just as 1920s Berlin, with an artistic sense of expressionism and sensuality, was giving birth to this film, in America the puritanical Hays Code of censorship was being conjured up. Its regulations were aimed at restricting sexuality and eroticism, along with uncomfortable political stances and any form of vice whatsoever. The puritanical roots that drove the Hayes Code can still be felt in American movies today - they are totally hung up about sexuality. My conclusion is that Europeans were always more relaxed, both artistically and intimately, in the realm of sexuality.... and this can be seen in films such as Varieté.

This silent flick stars Emil Jannings, who plays a trapeze artist in the circus who had a serious accident and gave up the circus. That is until he meets a young female émigré, and his passion for flying on the trapeze is rekindled. Ha! A pretty obvious metaphor for sex. But when the trapeze act needs a third person, the flying trapeze threesome becomes a dangerous triangle. This is a prime example of German expressionist cinema, in the sense that is about decadence and freedom, but it also registers a dark impulse under the surface (which some have identified as the first rustlings of Nazism).

Besides the central plot, the film is also a great depiction of Berlin during the wild Weimar years... a world of nightlife and fetishism. Everything is captured by the legendary cinematographer, and the innovator of the "unchained camera" Karl Freund. In a way, French director Jean-Luc Godard argues that both eroticism and poetry were destroyed in cinema as soon as sound synchronization was forced on the medium. I know that this sounds absurd to most people today, but there is a grain of truth in it. Synchronized sound made the film industry more commercial and low resolution. There was a huge shift from intimacy to spectacle. So let's detox ourselves from over-stimulation, and take a look at a movie where the images swell and explode with poetry rather than special effects.

This will be a high-definition screening.