The Cinema
"Mutter Krausen." At the Academy Cinema
Mutter Krausen is a thoroughly bad film. It is badly made and it is false from beginning to end. If a film of this quality were to issue from Hollywood it could be dismissed in a phrase ; but Mutter Krausen cannot be ignored, if only because of the distinction of its sponsors—the Academy Cinema and the Film Society—to whom we have grown to look for all that is good in the cinema.
The film is admittedly propaganda. The scene is the Alexanderplatz region of Berlin, immortalized (for the time being at any rate) by Alfred Doblin. The theme is over- crowding in slum areas ; and rarely, even by Hollywood, has a good theme been so outrageously mishandled. Piel Jutzi has closed his eyes to what was going on beneath his nose and concocted the farrago of nonsense which is Mutter Krausen. Leaving aside the intrinsic weakness of the story, and taking it for what it is worth, it could be translated into any stratum of society without losing a breath of such plausibility as it has. And it would gain, inasmuch as it is pleasanter to look upon silks and sables for an hour and a half than upon black bombazine.
It is merely the story of an old widow trying to hold the home together, and driven to the gas oven by a son who is a bad lot. There is also a daughter who gets herself into trouble. Because of overcrowding, we are told ; but this particular daughter, sensual, high-spirited, would have landed herself in trouble had she been born to town houses and villas on the Riviera—probably into far more complicated and spectacular trouble. The son would have been a black sheep in any environment. Mutter Krausen herself, busy keeping the home going, would have had an equally trying time keeping the family fortune together had she been a countess. In short the victims of overcrowding in this film are less sinned against than sinning.
So much for the bungled propaganda. Into the ineptitude of the story, as such, it is impossible to go here ; and the direction is scarcely more than a lesson in what not to do. There is some good photography, though nothing revolu- tionary, and the excellent lighting is never used as an integral part of the drama. There is much entirely pointless coming and going up and down an interminable flight of stairs— why is it that to photograph a man slowly making his way upstairs is regarded as the hallmark of good artistry in the cinema to-day ? The whole picture drags : the protraction of many of the scenes has to be seen to be believed. It is made bearable only by the acting, which is extraordinarily good. Alexandra Schmidt as Mutter Krausen and Ilse Trautsehold as the daughter have the best opportunities, but the odds are heavily against them in a film of this kind. Meanwhile we look forward to the day when Ilse Trautschold helps to make, and is herself made, by a film 'worthy of her
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