Review of Ménilmontant (1926) by Riccardo G — 07 Feb 2014

Often described very accurately as "a perfect fusion between French Impressionism, avant-garde Surrealism, Soviet montage and Hollywood pathos", Dimitri Kirsanoff's Ménilmontant (1926) represents the extent to which silent cinema could reach as a means of dramatic storytelling.

With revolutionary editing techniques that preceded many future projects, such as the double exposure, Ménilmontant is primarily notorious for having no intertitles explaining the story. It is storytelling at its most theatrical. An image is worth more than a thousand words. In this way, Kirsanoff's immaculate vision allowed the film to wear several masks in order to convey different emotions. From the opening sequence, which has a brutally impactful effect with no hesitation, to the scenarios that transmitted loneliness and melancholy, Ménilmontant is versatile in its appearance even if uneven in its genre composition, the latter not being a negative aspect whatsoever.

This versatility, however, is not only emotional, but technical as well. It makes visual transitions, from image juxtapositions to an extraordinary cinematography rarely seen before that precedes Renoir's Partie de Campagne by 10 years, gracious to capture the facets of an entire world: the natural landscapes of the country and the populated streets of the city, the images of terror and the explicit facial expressions, always transmitting something and never letting go.

"Revolutionary" is a term that seldom applies. This is a case that earned that merit. Ménilmontant blossoms as a flower in a sunny morning and sleeps quietly during the night, finding a perpetual place in the annals of cinema, in the mind of the critic and in the heart of the appreciator.

100/100.