Tavaszi Zapor (1932) - Pal Fejos

Before I get down to business I'd like to state a new goal for this blog.  I'm going to attempt however foolhardy to write a review of one of the films I watch each week.  Since I am privy to how many people view which blog entries (don't worry I can't see who views them) I noticed that film reviews seem to garner the most attention.  In other words people who aren't friends with me on facebook find my blog easier via these reviews.  

 

I'd also like to review some more rare films.  This isn't an effort to necessarily shine a light on neglected masterpieces, or to be an asshole and write about a bunch of films you can't find or never heard of.  No, this is an attempt to actually contribute something to the world of film studies.  Often times I watch a movie and look it up online only to find a sentence or two written about it and that's it, so allow me to help spread the gospel of film criticism as it were.  

The Film

Now some of you might recognize the name Pal Fejos, who went by the much more Americanized Paul when he was in Hollywood.  His best known film and the one most often considered his masterpiece Lonesome (1929) was released by Criterion not too long ago.  I should probably check this version out because I saw it in a god awful transfer of a severely deteriorated print on VHS.  Which is pretty much the exact same quality of Tavaszi Zapor that I just watched, except this VHS was transferred to a digital file.

Like many foreign films, and older movies this has several titles.  The English translation was Spring Showers, and a French version named Marie, legende hongroise which was featured in Jonathan Rosenbaum's top 1000.  There's also a Romanian version Prima Dragoste which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist anymore so there you have it.  In the days before subtitles were accepted or even dubbing oftentimes films were shot in entirely different languages.  Fejos himself was credited with directing a French and German version of The Big House (1930).  I can't speak for the differences between these various versions if it is only a matter of language.

The film opens with a prologue explaining the legend "That showers are sent from Heaven by long-dead mothers to protect their daughters from the temptations of spring and love."  You have to give a slight chuckle at this foolishness but of course Fejos has a plan in store for this antiquated anecdote.  This does however prime you for the idea that this is one of those films that probably couldn't work today.  It's sense of legend and morality are far too antiquated that it would be easily laughed off the screen today.  This is perhaps the reason why the French title referred to it as a Hungarian legend.

It is interesting though that Fejos not only begins the film in the present but actually takes us into the future, with the ending taking place roughly around 1950.  The only clue however is when the law comes to ruin Maria's life they mention the baby being born in August of 1934 (which would have been about two years after the film was shot), and of course the epilogue takes place 15 years later.  Perhaps it seems like a curious choice for Fejos to assume that things like this are truly timeless rather than a thing of the past.

Maria is played by the now forgotten star Annabella who was born in France and made a number of movies in Hollywood.  She was once married to Tyrone Power and she was quite a gossip page regular in her day, which essentially led to her leaving Hollywood.  Darryl Zanuck was mad at her for marrying his top star so he essentially never put her in movies and wouldn't loan her to other studios, essentially paying her a handsome salary not to work, hey I'd take that job.

Her performance as Maria Szabo (can you get more Hungarian?) is probably her best.  It's the type of role somewhat common in the earlier days of cinema that of a naive and innocent girl from the country who gets randomly seduced, abandoned, and has to carry the burden of being an unwed mother around.  For some reason the mere possibility of two young people "hooking up" for a night was preposterous to people back then and movies in every country had to beat home the point that if you have sex even once you're going to get pregnant, it's scientifically impossible not to.  You see how it's easy to chuckle at this film's basic premise.

Like a lot of silent films with similar seduced and abandoned themes with long suffering mothers you have to take it in the right perspective.  In other words you need to adopt some ultra-conservative Victorian era morals and think of the inhumanity and the injustice inflicted upon poor women like this.  It's the type of melodrama where you are constantly bombarded with misery.  Every little respite Maria has you just know something awful is right around the corner.  Even the end *spoiler* makes you think Fejos is going to dump on Maria once more, but instead she saves her daughter from a similar fate by making it rain, literally, thus tying everything together.

Now a lot of the plot is as previously stated ridiculous and antiquated.  Where this film separates itself is in it's visuals which shine through even in this horrifically awful transfer.  Like his earlier masterpiece Lonesome this film has some magical moments.  It's story of a simple country girl has drawn some comparisons to Murnau's Sunrise, and the ending truly is a remarkably visionary feat.  Stylistically Fejos blends quite a few elements together.  There are a few sequences which feature some rather rapid cutting and there is music almost start to finish in the film, something still somewhat rare for 1932.  Early in the film Fejos uses sound in an extraordinary and irritating way to demonstrate how chaotic things are in the Szabo house, screaming kids, crying babies, piano music, and yelling on top of yelling.

The ending is particularly odd how heaven is depicted.  From pretty much ever we've heard and seen different artists try to describe heaven.  For Fejos and his Maria it is a home much like the one she grew up on, except glittering and covered in gold.  I had to scratch my head when Maria realizes she's in heaven and proceeds to get on her knees with a mop bucket and get to cleaning, I mean really your idea of heaven is scrubbing floors?  Well worth checking out considering how small Fejos' cinematic output was.  Especially worthwhile for people who picked up the Criterion DVD and were wondering what to check out next.  Hopefully this will join the ranks of recently restored films as well.