Romancefest 2013: Asphalt

Now we take a little bit of a detour into the land of noir with ASPHALT, a German silent flick from 1929. Although Germany rivaled Hollywood at the time with its entertaining, artistic and ground-breaking film output, I'd never heard of ASPHALT until tonight.

The story concerns a good natured young traffic cop (Gustav Frohlich) who falls in love with a jewel thief femme fatale type (Betty Amann). This uncharacteristic dalliance for the cop eventually almost leads to his undoing, as these things do in the land of noir, except that our female lead this time out is more femme than fatale, and that's where the love story comes in. But -- I don't want to give up the ending.

Like a lot of German films from the era, ASPHALT is very atmospheric and gets a lot of mileage out of its locations, sets and lighting. ASPHALT is actually very gritty and realistic, unlike some of the more surreal flicks of the day, and features a lot of shots that looked to me to be actually on location, with lots of big bustling crowds and bumper to bumper traffic.

The movie spends a good amount of time in the first act getting the audience familiar with the setting -- this isn't just a city, it's a city of moral decay that is crumbling even as it rebuilds upon itself.

This setting hangs heavily over the main characters. As the young cop, Gustav Frohlich does a great job of projecting first innocence, then corruption and guilt. It was interesting to see this performance, because he's the same actor who played the lead in the much more famous (and earlier) METROPOLIS. Comparing the two performances, it is clear that he has a range that a lot of people don't often think about when considering silent-era actors.

But, the movie really rests on the shoulders of Betty Amann as the criminal girl who seduces the cop. She tells the whole story with her eyes, starting off as a con-woman and jewel thief, and ending as someone who just wants to do the right thing, no matter what.

The copy of the movie I saw unfortunately had all of the inter-titles in German. There aren't many inter-titles, and most of the story is effectively told through the visuals. Still, I read a synopsis to make sure I got everything. When I realized the film wasn't going to have English titles, I considered turning it off and waiting for another time to see it -- but the visuals were so striking and the establishing shots sucked me in so completely, I decided to just go ahead and watch it anyway.