“The
Lion Of The Moguls” was the final Jean Epstein silent film that was showing at
MIFF this year and sadly it was my least favourite of them all, at least from a
visual standpoint.
Somewhere
in India, Roundghito-Sing, the popular guard of the castle is banished from the
kingdom by the Grand Khan, the king of the kingdom, for saving a young woman
from Khan’s sexual advances. In fact,
the king sends his men to kill the young guard, but he ends up escaping and
finding help on a large boat that happens to be passing nearby. On board the boat is a film crew shooting a
new film with big time actress Anna.
Although a star, Anna doesn’t seem particularly happy and the reason for
this is the constant attention forced on her by the film’s financer Mr. Morel. Although unfamiliar with the art form of
cinema, it turns out that Roundghito-Sing is quite the actor and he gives up
his past life to become a movie star. He
and Anna become a couple but always in the background lurks Mr. Morel and his
money. Morel eventually comes up with a
plan to frame the naïve actor and have him sent to jail, leaving Anna all to
himself. The film ends with the cops closing
in on Roundgito-Sing, his Indian friends looking for him too, and Mr. Morel
hanging around for the prizes. The
reason also for the strong and instant connection between Anna and
Roundghito-Sing is something in his story relates very closely to Anna’s
mysterious past.
As I
mentioned above this was my least favourite of the Epstein silent films
screening at MIFF this year. It is not
that the film is bad, in fact it is quite entertaining, it is just so standard. There is nothing special about “The Lion Of
The Moguls”, it is really just a generic romance that was quite regular in the
silent era. Even the usual Epstein
visual flourishes that are his trademark are missing save for a few scenes. Visually the best scene in the film is one
where Roundghito-Sing goes to a nightclub and gets seriously drunk. Epstein blends image upon image expertly
giving a great appearance to the actor’s intoxication. Epstein also warps and blurs images in this
scene to create the desired effect.
Other superimpositions in shots include a scene when Anna feels Mr.
Morel to be smothering her and many images of Morel appear together in the
frame.
When the
film began in India, I was worried, because all of these scenes just felt so
fake, nothing looked real at all, so when the action shifted to the world of
cinema, I felt a little relieved. It was
almost like the filmmakers had no idea what India looked like and just made it
up from their imagination. I suppose the
basic strands of the plot exist in these scenes set in India, but they
certainly underwhelmed me. In fact it
wasn’t until towards the end when everybody was closing in on the couple that I
really started to enjoy “The Lion Of The Moguls”, though the finale at the
masque ball I thought was clichéd but really well handled.
Overall
“The Lion Of The Moguls” was just your standard run of the mill romantic
melodrama with a few of Epstein’s visual flourishes sprinkled within. It is not a bad film at all, and it would
probably be a nice introduction for people unfamiliar with silent cinema, but
for an Epstein film it was incredibly bland and for that reason I was
disappointed in it.
3 Stars.
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