In this mesmerizing collage of silent Italian melodrama, found-footage filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) affectionately captures the spirit of the World War One-era cinema diva. In all-but-lost gems such as La donna nuda (1914), and Tigre reale (1916), superstars such as Lyda Borelli and Pina Menichelli portrayed heroines teetering dangerously between defiant indulgence in sexual passion and hysterical remorse at their own cruelties. Delpeut’s inventive celebration of Black Romanticism is both striking and heartbreaking in its composition—a beautifully woven narrative of tempted fate and self-torment, elegantly guided by Loek Dikker’s original score. Zeitgeist Films is proud to present Delpeut’s stunningly experimental work in all its heaving bosomed, luridly tinted glory.
A Venetian girl falls in love with a poet. But the latter is too cynical and boastful to bother to reply to the young girl's passionate letter and instructs his secretary, a shy dreamer, to keep the exchange of letters alive. From this intertwining of letters, a tender love is born between the girl and the secretary.
Violette Miroy is a young woman in Paris whose well-off parents recently died having largely spent all their resources. She meets the mysterious Georges and they fall in love, yet being a well-brought-up lady she insists on marriage; The wedding takes place and they have five happy years together. Violette discovers by chance that her husband is the second son of the Queen. Prince Harold, the Crown Prince, is deeply envious of his younger brother, whose happiness with Violette is in stark contrast to his own betrothal to the haughty Princess Augusta. After a heart-to-heart with Violette, Harold realizes he’ll never be loved for himself alone, and in a fit of despair he kills himself. Georges is called to his mother’s side, and the formidable Queen insists the new heir apparent give up his wife, ordering Lolet kidnapped in order to convince Violette to renounce any thoughts of remaining married to her husband.
