The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

	Also Known As: La chute de la maison Usher (original)
	Year of first release: 1928
	Director: Jean Epstein
	Actors: Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance, Charles Lamy
	Country: F
	Genre: Drama, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 17.09.2014, CINEMA theater, MFFF2014
Synopsis: Sir Roderick Usher (Debucourt) calls in his friend Allan (Lamy) while his wife (Gance) is continuously sick and he is obsessed by drawing paintings of her.
Review: I misunderstood that the soundtrack of that rare piece of French Cinema History from 1928 would be played by a live DJ, justifying the regular entrance fee of 9 euros for a 59-minute movie. This reminded me of the good experience I had when watching Häxan (1922) at the SFFF2011. Actually the soundtrack was not live, but has been assembled by DJ Shahaf Thaler at the occasion of the movie's restoration. Not as original as a live performance but interesting nonetheless as it is true that many soundtrack were composed for this movie over the years (I don't even know if the original one still persists), why not adding something recent to it instead? The electronic fat beats are disturbing in the first minute but then I easily got used to them, expect when scenes change and the music not, or when there is some singing in the soundtrack. But in general I liked it and felt that it was probably easier to watch this movie with that soundtrack rather than with a classic high-pitched instrumental one. Indeed, unlike other movies I know from that period (20-30's), this one doesn't have a fast pace with characters running around and lots of action. On the contrary, the utterly simple plot is only used to show on screen the delirium of the main character, in a way characteristic of the surrealism movement. Because surrealistic is what this movie is, directed by Epstein with as assistant a certain Luis Buñuel who would later direct his own surrealistic movies on scripts by Salvador Dali. This is why you need a good soundtrack to keep you awake during the slow motions (quite impressive to find those in such an old movie) and extended shots of the character's faces. Not that it bored me, I found the exercise very interesting and some ideas and experimentation were revolutionary at this time when cinema was young. All in all a good experience. Although restored and a quantum leap with respect to any current DVD edition (as the Festival's organizer promised us) the image quality is not as sharp as in Metropolis (1927) and the director seems to have suffered from an impossibility of his camera to focus on close objects.
Rating: 7 /10