"Menilmontant" is named after the Parisian working-class district where it is located. It is about two sisters who both fell in love with the same loverboy.
"Menilmontant" was a favorite film of the renowned filmcritic Pauline Kael, but despite her support the film (and his director) has fallen into oblivion. Today the film is mainly shown in highly specialised festivals.
Director Dimitri Kirsanoff is today almost forgotten. Despite what I said above, "Menilmontant" is at IMDB by far his most popular film measured by votes. Kirsanoff was part of the French impressionist movement, together with better known names such as Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Jacques Feyder and Jean Epstein.
An important feauture of this silent film is that it contains absolutely no intertitles. The whole story and the corresponding emotions are told using only images. To do this Kirsanoff uses (for that time) innovative techniques of editing.
Reading the reviews it struck me that nobody denied the innovative character of "Menilmontant", but everybody made his own associations.
Some compared the film with associative editing a la Eisenstein from roughly the same period. An example from the film is the way in which images of the (hungry) girl with her baby and the loverboy that has already forgotten the girl are edited right after each other while they are sitting (at differen times) on ths same bank in a Parisian park.
Some compared the film with the Italian neo realist movement from after the Second World War based on the fact that "Montilmontant" is situated in a working class district and portrays the life of the poor.
My own associations where different. The film made me think of "Sunrise" (1927, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) but also of "The phantom carriage" (1921, Victor Sjöström).
"Sunrise" because its dynamic portrayel of city life, using the then very heavy camera as though it was a handycam.
"The phantom carriage" because its use of the double exposure technique. In "Menilmontant" this technique is used in a scene where images of city life are combined with (for that time very explicit) images of love making.
"Menilmontant" was a favorite film of the renowned filmcritic Pauline Kael, but despite her support the film (and his director) has fallen into oblivion. Today the film is mainly shown in highly specialised festivals.
Director Dimitri Kirsanoff is today almost forgotten. Despite what I said above, "Menilmontant" is at IMDB by far his most popular film measured by votes. Kirsanoff was part of the French impressionist movement, together with better known names such as Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Jacques Feyder and Jean Epstein.
An important feauture of this silent film is that it contains absolutely no intertitles. The whole story and the corresponding emotions are told using only images. To do this Kirsanoff uses (for that time) innovative techniques of editing.
Reading the reviews it struck me that nobody denied the innovative character of "Menilmontant", but everybody made his own associations.
Some compared the film with associative editing a la Eisenstein from roughly the same period. An example from the film is the way in which images of the (hungry) girl with her baby and the loverboy that has already forgotten the girl are edited right after each other while they are sitting (at differen times) on ths same bank in a Parisian park.
Some compared the film with the Italian neo realist movement from after the Second World War based on the fact that "Montilmontant" is situated in a working class district and portrays the life of the poor.
My own associations where different. The film made me think of "Sunrise" (1927, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) but also of "The phantom carriage" (1921, Victor Sjöström).
"Sunrise" because its dynamic portrayel of city life, using the then very heavy camera as though it was a handycam.
"The phantom carriage" because its use of the double exposure technique. In "Menilmontant" this technique is used in a scene where images of city life are combined with (for that time very explicit) images of love making.