17. září 2012  

"Revolutionary road" - Mark le Fanu on Boris Barnet’s Films

"Carefree comedy" (The Girl with the Hatbox) and "Decent humanity" (Outskirts)

"Barnet’s knowledge of, and delight in, the theatre had always been congruent with realism. He had a great feeling for theatrical set construction, but an equally fine eye for location shooting. His films have a sure sense of place, and in this way seem reluctant to lie to us."

Barnet’s early sound film By the Bluest of Seas (U samovo sineyvo morya, 1936) was also released on DVD earlier this year, and is well worth getting hold of. But in the post-war period his career faltered. Fearing (it is said) that he had lost his artistic touch, he committed suicide in 1965, at the age of 63. The history of cinema is littered with minor tragedies, and his is one of them.

Le Fanu finds „freedom, idleness and underground eroticism“ in "Okraina"