El amor de Sonia

Gloria Swanson was an interesting person and this is an interesting film.

Contrary to what some modern and vintage reviewers would have you believe, the film was well received and played for weeks at some theaters. I know this because I happened to read statistics in a Motion Picture Yearbook published in 1927 and available at our local university library.

If a studio produced such a film today it would be called a "New Age" sort of movie. The heroine, wealthy Sunya Ashling, meets a mysterious man who keeps hanging around the mansion during a pivotal moment in her life. She is being rushed by a family crisis into making a decision (whether to marry an industrialist or pursue a career in music in Europe) which will affect the rest of her life. He shows her a crystal ball and bids her look in it and "see" the logical consequences of each outcome.

It turns out that the mysterious man sought her out because he sexually assaulted her in a previous life thousands of years ago in Egypt when she was living the life of a temple priestess. She tumbled into a fire pit in a temple while fleeing him and died. He has never had, or perhaps has never taken, the opportunity to make amends until the 20th century. Throughout the movie, she never knows this, but it does not matter. The pace is slow and the acting is stylized and stiff, but if you can get past these flaws you will be rewarded with a pretty cool ending.