Ernst Lubitsch's second to last mostly silent film (there's a dedicated soundtrack, but it's just music and some sound effects), Eternal Love doesn't hit the same peaks as his previous film, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, and it's more in line tonally with his historical melodramas. However, it's more successful than any of those historical melodramas, though. Stripped of the need for the explanation of larger settings and situations in the medium of silent film, the story is much smaller in scale, offering more time on character in its limited runtime.
My only major problem with the film is its first twenty minutes or so. They're kind of weird, and I suppose they sort of tie into the rest of the film thematically, but you have to squint a bit to see it. It introduces our three main characters Marcus (John Barrymore), Ciglia (Camilla Horn), and Pia (Mona Rico). In a remote mountain village in Switzerland, at a time when the country has been caught in the middle of a conflict between France and Germany, the citizens of the town must give up their arms to placate their French invaders (whom we never see). The entire town complies except Marcus who uses his gun to feed himself by killing deer. The whole dynamic between the three principle characters here is off in my mind.
First, Marcus is an independent man who is willing to defend himself and his rights even in the face of oppression. That's admirable, but the only person who seems to see that as admirable at all is Pia, the wild girl on the edges of the small society (reminding me of Pola Negi's title role in The Wildcat), who loves Marcus for who he is. The "eternal love" of the title, though, is shared between Marcus and Ciglia. Ciglia, the daughter of the preacher, considers abandoning her love of Marcus in the face of his resistance to the gun ban, and her love for Marcus is only reinforced when he does just that. There's something off about how this opening works, and it bugs me. I get what it's actually doing, though. It's showing that Marcus does love Ciglia so much that he's willing to do something against his own principles to make her happy and retain her love, but in the face of a literal invasion from an outside country, it goes beyond just bending to the will of a girl you love. It's abdication of actual duty to one's home and liberties. It's...weird. Throw in the fact that Pia loves him for who he is, for his obstinance, and it's a bit weirder still.
That's the first ten minutes or so, and the next ten minutes is a different kind of weird. It ends up feeling kind of weirdly amorphous and directionless as the occupation (which we never saw) ends and we get an extended masquerade celebration at the local tavern. There's some mistaken identity stuff as Marcus doesn't know which masked woman is Ciglia while Pia tries to attract his attention. I wonder if this had opened the film instead of the stuff about the gun might it have worked better. I'm not sure, but it feels structurally and in terms of its pacing to be an effort to introduce characters rather than just the next scene. It takes a while to play out while doing little, is what I'm saying.
However, once Marcus and Ciglia leave the party in order to take her home, the movie is finally on firm footing and never lets go. It's a shaky start (with the reappearance of Hanns Kraly in the credits as writer, I can only assume that a bit of it is his fault), but the pieces get laid nonetheless. The keys are that Marcus really loves Ciglia who really loves him back while Pia is a mischievous woman out to steal Marcus away. It all actually starts moving when Marcus stumbles into his house really drunk and finds a naked Pia on his bed (the nudity is implied, of course), and they sleep together. It was a calculated move on Pia's part, and the news quickly spreads. The irony is that Ciglia decides to remain by Marcus' side in a quiet moment where they hold hands after she figures out what's happened. It's not to last, though, since her father, Reverend Tass (Hobart Bosworth) obviously won't have the match anymore, and Marcus and Pia end up quickly married.
In an effort to get her over her sorrow, Reverend Tass arranges the match with another local man, Lorenz (Victor Varconi) who has held unrequited feelings towards Ciglia for a while. They are quickly married with Tass asking his new son-in-law if Ciglia still has thoughts for Marcus, an idea that Lorenz quickly laughs off.
Things swirl when Marcus is in the mountain when a snowstorm sweeps through. Pia is concerned for her husband, the man that offers her no love at all, and she goes from door to door begging for help. When she tells Lorenz of Marcus' situation with Ciglia off to the side, Ciglia can't help but gasp in horror at the situation which Lorenz immediately reads as him being wrong about her having let go of her old flame. The emotional stakes are clear, especially when Marcus shows up safe and sound, and we're due for a finale where the personalities, which can no longer all coexist together peacefully, clash in a final showdown. It's not a Mexican standoff, or anything, but people do die, and it's the kind of tragic ending that ends up working surprisingly well. There's the pursuit of true love in the face of societal pressure and even an embrace of much larger threats and promises from Nature and God. There are implications that feed the central idea quite well.
So, the opening twenty minutes is weird, but it sets the pieces well enough so that Lubitsch and Kraly can take their characters on a surprisingly affecting emotional journey. I suppose my only complaint from the twenty minute point on is that Pia kind of just disappears from the narrative (she becomes part of a mob and is never seen again).
Now, to try and connect the opening to the rest of the film. I think it has something to do with the idea of neutrality. Switzerland is neutral in the conflict between France and Germany, and Marcus, in his new life as Pia's husband, tries to remain neutral regarding the relationship between Ciglia and Lorenz. He doesn't interfere or involve himself. He sets himself apart, but Lorenz can't abide by it, needing Marcus to leave the area completely. His neutrality ends up being part of the downfall that engulfs him and Ciglia. That's not what actually happens to Switzerland in the opening, though. Nothing bad happens to them because they throw down their arms in the face of France's occupation (that we never see). France just leaves. The neutrality paid off. So, I sort of get it, but it's imprecise, misses the mark, and doesn't actually inform the later parts of the story.
The opening really just doesn't fit, but the rest of the film is really, really good. I wonder if simply cutting the first ten minutes completely and starting with the masquerade would actually improve the film, getting it actually started a bit earlier. You'd miss some stuff like Lorenz's unrequited appreciation of Ciglia and a couple of other things, but, on balance, I think it might be an improvement.
So, it's not The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, but it's not Anna Boleyn or Sumurun either. Overall, I'd call it pretty good, something that ends a whole lot better than it begins, but I kind of love a good chunk of it.
My only major problem with the film is its first twenty minutes or so. They're kind of weird, and I suppose they sort of tie into the rest of the film thematically, but you have to squint a bit to see it. It introduces our three main characters Marcus (John Barrymore), Ciglia (Camilla Horn), and Pia (Mona Rico). In a remote mountain village in Switzerland, at a time when the country has been caught in the middle of a conflict between France and Germany, the citizens of the town must give up their arms to placate their French invaders (whom we never see). The entire town complies except Marcus who uses his gun to feed himself by killing deer. The whole dynamic between the three principle characters here is off in my mind.
First, Marcus is an independent man who is willing to defend himself and his rights even in the face of oppression. That's admirable, but the only person who seems to see that as admirable at all is Pia, the wild girl on the edges of the small society (reminding me of Pola Negi's title role in The Wildcat), who loves Marcus for who he is. The "eternal love" of the title, though, is shared between Marcus and Ciglia. Ciglia, the daughter of the preacher, considers abandoning her love of Marcus in the face of his resistance to the gun ban, and her love for Marcus is only reinforced when he does just that. There's something off about how this opening works, and it bugs me. I get what it's actually doing, though. It's showing that Marcus does love Ciglia so much that he's willing to do something against his own principles to make her happy and retain her love, but in the face of a literal invasion from an outside country, it goes beyond just bending to the will of a girl you love. It's abdication of actual duty to one's home and liberties. It's...weird. Throw in the fact that Pia loves him for who he is, for his obstinance, and it's a bit weirder still.
That's the first ten minutes or so, and the next ten minutes is a different kind of weird. It ends up feeling kind of weirdly amorphous and directionless as the occupation (which we never saw) ends and we get an extended masquerade celebration at the local tavern. There's some mistaken identity stuff as Marcus doesn't know which masked woman is Ciglia while Pia tries to attract his attention. I wonder if this had opened the film instead of the stuff about the gun might it have worked better. I'm not sure, but it feels structurally and in terms of its pacing to be an effort to introduce characters rather than just the next scene. It takes a while to play out while doing little, is what I'm saying.
However, once Marcus and Ciglia leave the party in order to take her home, the movie is finally on firm footing and never lets go. It's a shaky start (with the reappearance of Hanns Kraly in the credits as writer, I can only assume that a bit of it is his fault), but the pieces get laid nonetheless. The keys are that Marcus really loves Ciglia who really loves him back while Pia is a mischievous woman out to steal Marcus away. It all actually starts moving when Marcus stumbles into his house really drunk and finds a naked Pia on his bed (the nudity is implied, of course), and they sleep together. It was a calculated move on Pia's part, and the news quickly spreads. The irony is that Ciglia decides to remain by Marcus' side in a quiet moment where they hold hands after she figures out what's happened. It's not to last, though, since her father, Reverend Tass (Hobart Bosworth) obviously won't have the match anymore, and Marcus and Pia end up quickly married.
In an effort to get her over her sorrow, Reverend Tass arranges the match with another local man, Lorenz (Victor Varconi) who has held unrequited feelings towards Ciglia for a while. They are quickly married with Tass asking his new son-in-law if Ciglia still has thoughts for Marcus, an idea that Lorenz quickly laughs off.
Things swirl when Marcus is in the mountain when a snowstorm sweeps through. Pia is concerned for her husband, the man that offers her no love at all, and she goes from door to door begging for help. When she tells Lorenz of Marcus' situation with Ciglia off to the side, Ciglia can't help but gasp in horror at the situation which Lorenz immediately reads as him being wrong about her having let go of her old flame. The emotional stakes are clear, especially when Marcus shows up safe and sound, and we're due for a finale where the personalities, which can no longer all coexist together peacefully, clash in a final showdown. It's not a Mexican standoff, or anything, but people do die, and it's the kind of tragic ending that ends up working surprisingly well. There's the pursuit of true love in the face of societal pressure and even an embrace of much larger threats and promises from Nature and God. There are implications that feed the central idea quite well.
So, the opening twenty minutes is weird, but it sets the pieces well enough so that Lubitsch and Kraly can take their characters on a surprisingly affecting emotional journey. I suppose my only complaint from the twenty minute point on is that Pia kind of just disappears from the narrative (she becomes part of a mob and is never seen again).
Now, to try and connect the opening to the rest of the film. I think it has something to do with the idea of neutrality. Switzerland is neutral in the conflict between France and Germany, and Marcus, in his new life as Pia's husband, tries to remain neutral regarding the relationship between Ciglia and Lorenz. He doesn't interfere or involve himself. He sets himself apart, but Lorenz can't abide by it, needing Marcus to leave the area completely. His neutrality ends up being part of the downfall that engulfs him and Ciglia. That's not what actually happens to Switzerland in the opening, though. Nothing bad happens to them because they throw down their arms in the face of France's occupation (that we never see). France just leaves. The neutrality paid off. So, I sort of get it, but it's imprecise, misses the mark, and doesn't actually inform the later parts of the story.
The opening really just doesn't fit, but the rest of the film is really, really good. I wonder if simply cutting the first ten minutes completely and starting with the masquerade would actually improve the film, getting it actually started a bit earlier. You'd miss some stuff like Lorenz's unrequited appreciation of Ciglia and a couple of other things, but, on balance, I think it might be an improvement.
So, it's not The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, but it's not Anna Boleyn or Sumurun either. Overall, I'd call it pretty good, something that ends a whole lot better than it begins, but I kind of love a good chunk of it.