Schaste vechnoy nochi

Vera Karalli has been blind from birth. This means she plays the violin exquisitely, arranges flowers with shaking hands, and stares in a soul-destroying manner. Vitold Polonsky loves her. He also has a thoroughly dissolute brother, Oleg Frelikh, who keeps borrowing money from him and from Freilikh's mistress. Polonsky and Miss Karalli's mother raise enough money to have an operation performed that will give her sight. However, now that she can see, she thinks that Freilikh is the one who has done all these these things for her, and so they are going to get married. No one tells her the truth for fear of upsetting her.

After that, it gets even sillier. From this you may conclude -- and rightly so -- that I don't think much of this movie directed by Yevgeny Bauer. Still, he puts in a lot of work on the sets and props, so that it is always interesting to look. And at slightly less than 40 minutes, it doesn't take too long.

This pre-revolution Russian melodrama tells the story of a blind women caught in a case of mistaken identity with two brothers. The story is contrived, but fairly easy to follow, even without the aide of inter-titles (missing in some versions, Russian only in others). Those familiar with Russian films of the silent era might be stuck by how different this is to the revolutionary films of the Soviet-era, with a focus on middle-class characters and 'bourgeois' problems.

The production value is high, with impressive looking sets and costumes and the quality of the performances is good by the standard of silent-era acting. However, Bauer's direction is mostly very simplistic, with entire scenes playing out in on long wide shot. While that style was common in the era, innovative use of close-ups and cross-cutting were emerging, but unfortunately not in this film. Regardless, this is a solid piece of filmmaking from a talent early filmmaker.