Once a Spanish poet wisely said: "The good, if brief, twice as good." At the time I write these words I have been watching this film for a little over four hours. I still have three long hours (of a total of seven hours, the version that have been restored by the year 2019) that seem to repeat themselves in an eternal absurd return. It is precisely the condemnation of Sisyphus, the hero of the Greek tragedy, who is cursed to repeat a senseless and fruitless task of pushing a rock upwards the top of the mountain. However, this absurdity of an agonizing task is justified by the act of creation itself: La roue (The wheel) exists, for our good luck, when it might as well not do so. As I have already read here, in other comments, the length might be its main weakness. In other great works, such as Les Vampires (1916, 7 hours, Louis Feuillade) or Dr. Mabuse (1922, 4 hours, Fritz Lang), the extension is its main repellent and disintegrating trait. These attempts are like preparing a cup of coffee with two liters of water: it can be something refreshing but also tasteless. And I am afraid that its photography and montage are not enough to understand such excess, but rather the craving for the craving itself. It cannot even be explained as a trend of its time, because there were already good rules of composition about conciseness and precision. Anyway, I'll finish seeing what remains, painfully and reluctantly... For those who are curious, I suggest finding excerpts from a movie fan on the web, crazy and wandering enough to edit the good scenes for us, the foolish and brave ones.
