Mazurka (1935), Willi Forst – A review

A Young Woman, stalked and pressured by a famous, older, musician into a date, gives in and accompanies him for a night out. It seems like a rather problematic love story, especially from today’s view, until the performer, another, older woman, sees the two, screams and faints. The man in a hurry tries to leave but on the stairs is shot dead by the performer. At this point the narrative jumps and it is revealed that the young woman was narrating the opening in front of the court. What follows is the life story of the murderess and why she shot the musician.

It becomes quickly clear that Forst is a virtuoso in his usage of framing, transitions and the camera in general. Glances, looks, a twitching of hands are given the same weight as screams and tears. Since our protagonist Vera is only willing to tell her story to the judges, without the public present, we see the people leave. The crowd is hesitant, especially the young woman, but eventually the doors close. The film transitions into the hall again, revealing to us the empty court, only men there, ready to decide the fate of a woman who stands alone. Willing to give up everything to protect someone. Who, we don’t yet know.

Her narration takes us back before the first World War, where we see her leave a theater group to become the wife of a general. Among the troop is also Grigorij, the musician Vera will later in life kill. She tells us of how lonely her days became with her husband leaving for the war, how worried about their daughter she was and how eventually she reunited with her friends on one occasion, among them again Grigorij.

It is in that sequence at the ball and the following party where Forst directs the film into something more emotional. Like in other Forst films, the usage of music is superb; especially here, with the theme of the Mazurka being reused at different stages of Vera's life. First when she leaves her troupe, and now again when she reunites with them, both life changing events for her.

As the evening goes on, Vera gets more drunk and Grigorij continues to make passes at Vera, once more trying his damnedest to seduce her. As in the end she is unable to go home she stays at his house, only for him to sexually assault her. The montage leading up to this scene is Incredibly disturbing, right up to the moment where we get a first person shot of the musician forcing himself upon her. It is a nightmarishly explicit scene, not in what it shows, but in what it portrays and implies: the helplessness we feel with Vera, experiencing the scene through her eyes and the anger that rises for the man destroying her life.

The next morning, only partially realizing what happened, Vera feels guilty and rushes back home to her daughter. She finds her husband, missing one arm, returned. Wanting but unable to tell him about that night, Vera is suffering and, in the end, loses not only her husband, but also her daughter. She is forced to leave, carrying on, joining lower-level actors, once again performing the Mazurka.

Forst's background as a performer, he himself starred in many musicals, must have in some way influenced his portrait of Vera, a woman wanting to give up her calling for love, forced to keep on performing the piece that brought her into this predicament. Always treating her with care, the film hinges on Pola Negri's performance. She becomes the mother, the dancer, the murderess. Changing from scene to scene in whichever way the script demands of her. Forst uses a great many close-ups of her: in terror, in fear, in love, in sacrifice. It is at its core a tale about a mother more than a murder. A mother willing to sacrifice everything for the life of her child, protecting it at all costs with no regards for her own life. There are few better depictions of that then the very last scene; a few seconds of bliss, of being close to a person, showing love as something that isn't necessarily earthly or tangible.