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Within domestic spaces, uncanny transformation: Walls that at first might belong to Joan of Arc's cell warm up by the stove, the intimidating patriarch reigns despotic in medium-shot but finally turns plaintive in a John Singer Sargent close-up. The household is Carl Theodor Dreyer's terrain for the benefit of Ozu, the wife (Astrid Holm) goes through an encyclopedia of chores yet remains pathologically optimistic (faced with irreparable socks, she just turns them into mittens). The husband (Johannes Meyer) is a struggling businessman hardened by failure, his ogreish side punishes his son for playing in the ice and scolds his wife for the insufficient butter on his toast. "Really, what do you do all day?" The Parson's Widow is here the formidable old nanny (Mathilde Nielsen) who takes it all in, sewing quietly in the corner until the boy triggers the housewife's breakdown by asking the definition of "tyrant." Away she goes to recuperate, meanwhile Nana moves in and lays down the law. "You will be put in the corner yourself, trust me." The path to salvation includes cleaning up after canaries, folding blankets with the daughter and changing the baby's diapers, the goal is "to know the wearisome life of a housewife" and, furthermore, "to see yourself through the eyes of others." A Charley Chase comedy by Leo McCarey, practically, an elegant treatment built on quotidian drabness beatified by resurrected emotion. The dinner table wobbles from a missing chip of wood, the climactic image has Meyer standing proudly in his suit but with dusty pants from having knelt before his returning beloved. Ordet's pendulum-barometer in a restored home becomes heart-shaped and palpitates, De Sica in A Brief Vacation has it from another vantage point. With Karin Nellemose, Clara Schønfeld, and Aage Hoffman. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |