Film: La Chienne

I was to watch film on Thursday - and decided to try La Chienne. This time, it's on the Sands Films playlist.

Of course, as usual I found lots else to do.. so it was actually today till I got around to it! But with an afternoon lull in decent programming, I bit the bullet. Took far longer than it should have, what with buffering, but anyway. I see this time they learned their lesson, and don't have ten dead minutes at the beginning - just an intro that lasts about as long.

The film is definitely interesting. Made in 1931, apparently it was the first "talkie" from this director. And while it tells a tale as old as time, it makes clear at the start that it's not meant as a morality tale - just an observation of life, if you will. So, the plot centres around a bourgeois man, living a humdrum life in Paris. He has a boring job as a cashier, is severely henpecked by his shrewish wife - his only passion, as he proclaims in one scene, is painting! Well, if he was hoping for a change, he certainly gets one when he gets involved with a pretty young prostitute..

I've gotta say, it's a lot more interesting to watch than most films I've seen from the era. The characters are drawn with depth, the story is non-typical.. with a couple of twists, you really can't predict where this is headed. No clichés here. Curiously, the pimp really reminded me of someone I used to work with - perhaps they're related! Anyway, well worth a watch to while away an afternoon.

Now, I was due a couple more films in the intervening days - and I fully intend to catch up on them. Just maybe not right now.. Next up in the list is Phantom of the Opera, from 1925, with Lon Chaney - available, again, on the Internet Archive. Sounds like a properly scary version..

And after that, there's Jallikattu, in which an Indian village appears to go berserk after a buffalo gets loose. Hey-ho! On Amazon Prime, this one.

Wonder whether I'll get them watched before tomorrow, when I'm back with London Social Detours, for a talk about Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary..