In this film, Giovanni Pastrone successfully applies to the melodrama genre the innovative cinematographic language that he had developed in Cabiria. As in Cabiria, there are ellipses in the action to cover a long period of time; in addition, there is here a long flashback where the Countess tells the story of her dramatic first love. Cross-cutting is used efficiently and filming combines camera movements and alternating between wide shots, medium shots and close-ups. Numerous indoor and outdoor sets are used with spectacular scenes involving a troika sledge in deep snow and a theatre and hotel engulfed in fire. Orange, yellow, green, blue and red tainting is used to convey the atmosphere of the various scenes. Pina Menichelli, one of the great Italian stars of the time is wonderful as a femme fatale and all men around her are only sidekicks, although Febo Mari is quite convincing as the polish outlaw desperately in love with the beautiful countess.
a-cinema-history.blogspot.be/2013/11
a-cinema-history.blogspot.be/2013/11