Review of Sumerki zhenskoy dushi

Bauer's "Twilight of a Woman's Soul" tells the tale of Vera, the daughter of a countess who is very lonely although she is surrounded by luxury. The film follows her through several phases, and ends with her transformation to a powerful, independent woman. The film deals with some intense themes, including rape and murder. It's never explicitly stated that they occur, however—the text refers to them as 'her secret' or something similar, though, making it pretty clear that the horrible deeds did indeed occur. Although the text was rather sparse, it did a good job filling the holes in the plot—there were not that many holes, though. Great performances by Chernova and Ugrajumov respectively in the roles of Vera and the Prince made the movie easy and enjoyable to watch for the most part. The staging was also impressive. Mostly stationary scenes without any camera movement, the scenes were all quite picturesque and beautiful. Bauer also used the tinting technique—both blue and pink tints, which allowed him to capture extremely different moods throughout the film. "Twilight of a Woman's Soul" was impressive and entertaining for its early date, and also surprisingly easy to follow even without a significant amount of text. It is worth a watch to see one of the movies that show how Bauer started his impressive career.