Review of The Devil Is a Woman (1935) by Ryan H — 14 Nov 2012

The first film I've seen by Josef Von Sernebrg and I'm kinda let down. It's not entirely his fault since The Woman and the Puppet is much too sexual of a story to tell on the screen in the 1930s.

There's an interesting dynamic in this version that doesn't seem to be in the short story, and that follows Concha being able to grab every single man instead of just one. Every man in the story thinks she's beautiful, but in the film every man becomes hypnotized by her.

The first half stays pretty faithful to the short story and the second half takes a pretty big turn. Instead of having Pasqual finish telling Antonio the story of Concha and then ending with a note, the midpoint turns at the note being sent to Concha and Antonio's with her.

This turns into a big fight between Pasqual and Antonio because he agreed to never see her again. What I would have loved is to see the actual strange love Concha has for Pasqual, assuming that's what they were getting at.

Much was lost in translation to the point that I don't really understand the motivations of the characters. Pasqual gives Concha money so she can be free and she flirts with him in order to continue getting money.

There's a really great moment where Pasqual beats Concha while we focus on a door. This is probably the best dynamic we get because even though he treats her this way she comes back and he doesn't want her to come back.

He feels bad for what he has done, but at the same time believes she earned it. The characters here are not black and white. There's even the great moment when Antonio duels Pasqual and when they are supposed to fire Pasqual turns up his gun and Antonio shoots him.

Pasqual could have won that duel easily, but he's not a murderer or a bad guy. I also liked the ending of Concha putting Antonio on the train then leaving him unexpectedly. I was also kinda bored in points.

It doesn't have a very good pace nor does it connect well with the audience. It's good, but nothing great.