Singoalla - die Zigeunerin

The fact that this movie is not granted even one star in the "Guide Des Films" speaks volumes about what "modern" critics are still thinking of the Pre-Nouvelle Vague cinema.That there are three comments on it and that they are ALL positive prove that there is ,sometimes ,justice in the universe.

Ingmar Bergman himself was a trainee during the filming of "Singoalla " and it might have inspired him some aspects of his own "the seventh seal" .Bergman liked French directors who were/ are despised by the N.W.highbrows:Andre Cayatte and mainly Julien Duvivier he adored.

Now for the movie:first of all,it is a good movie,even a splendid one regarded in context .Christian-Jaque ,when he teamed up with Pierre Véry could not do wrong.Inspired by old Nordic legends ,there are echoes of Edgar Allan Poe in Véry's screenplay ,principally in the first thirty minutes ("Metzengernstein" and " The Fall of the House of Usher".A tale of love,death and fate between a young noble whose ancestors died in their prime and a fiery gypsy .

Michel Auclair gives a brilliant performance ,almost Shakespearian (as he was also a stage actor,he must have played "Hamlet" ),displaying romanticism,cynicism and madness.

The cinematography by Christian Matras is very dark and the characters and the landscapes seem to be wrapped in a shroud .Black silhouettes move in a desolation land .A couple walks across a fortress where everyone is dead ,some kind of Noire "Sleeping Beauty".Every character has his double : the gypsy and the fair lady Erland marries,the two children,Erland's mother and the old gypsy woman ,both not forgiving the lovers their treason,Erland and Assim,the priest and his heathen counterpart ,the gypsies' patriarch.

Like this?try these....

"L'Eternel Retour" ,Jean Delannoy/Jean Cocteau,1943

"Les Visiteurs Du Soir" ,Marcel Carné ,1942.

"Sortilèges" ,Christian -Jaque ,1944