The Mistress of Atlantis

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Audience Member This is the 3rd, and most recent, in the three films I've seen by controversial director G.W. Pabst, after his extraordinary silent classics, 'Pandora's Box' and 'Diary of a Lost Girl', both starring legendary screen goddess Louise Brooks. It's the English-language version of 'L'Atlantide', itself a sound-remake of the '21 silent film by Jacques Feyder, and, by being mostly shot on location in the Sahara Desert, went against the grain at the time of shooting movies exclusively in studio. In Brigitte Helm, mainly known for her starring role of Fritz Lang's sci-fi magnum opus, 'Metropolis', he had a stunning villainous female, who would have made a great femme fatale, had she continued on the following decade in film noir. The script is nondescript and a tad melodramatic, and the other actors are decidedly pedestrian, but Pabst's visual elan and directorial genius shines through and lifts an otherwise drab picture. Worth your time if you're a fan of adventure films of the era, however. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member This is the 3rd, and most recent, in the three films I've seen by controversial director G.W. Pabst, after his extraordinary silent classics, 'Pandora's Box' and 'Diary of a Lost Girl', both starring legendary screen goddess Louise Brooks. It's the English-language version of 'L'Atlantide', itself a sound-remake of the '21 silent film by Jacques Feyder, and, by being mostly shot on location in the Sahara Desert, went against the grain at the time of shooting movies exclusively in studio. In Brigitte Helm, mainly known for her starring role of Fritz Lang's sci-fi magnum opus, 'Metropolis', he had a stunning villainous female, who would have made a great femme fatale, had she continued on the following decade in film noir. The script is nondescript and a tad melodramatic, and the other actors are decidedly pedestrian, but Pabst's visual elan and directorial genius shines through and lifts an otherwise drab picture. Worth your time if you're a fan of adventure films of the era, however. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member a total waste of time i want my 87 minutes back Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Weak on plot, slow pacing, and uninteresting characters. Most of the story doesn't make a lot of sense, and by the end you feel bored with it anyway. It does have some interesting filming, but otherwise, it's a dull film. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member L'Atlantide, Pierre Benoit's 1919, was first famously shot by Jacques Feyder in 1921 - that almost three hour epic showed the grandeur and scale of Benoit's imaginative science-fiction novel. The story is simple - two soldiers discover the lost city of Atlantis under the Saharan sands, and fight for the love of the Queen of Atlantis, driven to madness, and one escapes: only to desire a return to the city and the Queen but not finding the way. Feyder's version, shot in the Sahara, is a tense, dreamy evocation of Benoit's world. In 1932, G.W. Pabst, the legendary director of Pandora's Box (one of the last great silent movies) mounted his own version of this classic novel. Like Feyder he travelled to the Sahara to film, and his film has a dreamy, hallucinatory quality. It also has the blessing of having a towering, seductive performance from Brigitte Helm as the Queen (she was the robot in Metropolis too). Unlike Feyder's version, Pabst has under an hour and a half to tell his story and so much is cut, elided, or traduced in the telling. Normally such actions would make a movie feel rushed - but it does something else here - it makes the film more dreamlike. We're never quite sure what is really going on, and some sequences seem too incredible - does she really have a pet leopard? Are they playing chess or are they fucking? Pabst's film is full of these visual delusions, images that transfix your gaze and discombobulate your mind. For its short running time, L'Atlantide (The Mistress of Atlantis in its American release) is nothing less than thrilling, though flawed, beautiful yet mysterious. It is a film you will not forget easily. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member L'Atlantide habita en un lugar perdido entre el cine de aventuras y la ensoñacion opiacea, entre violentas tormentas de arena y misteriosas grutas subterraneas. Protagoniza la Maria de Metropolis, Brigitte Helm, de gorgonico aspecto aqui. Dirige George W. Pabst , alternando momentos de puro genio visual con un libreto que, por momentos, resulta demasiado esquematico. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Mistress of Atlantis

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