Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Film Review

Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), possibly the two most important films directed by G.W. Pabst, have the distinction that both feature in the lead role Louise Brooks, an actress who failed to make a name for herself in Hollywood but who acquired immortality through these two cinematic marvels. Together, the films form a perfect diptych which encapsulates not only Pabst's art but also his view of women.  The characters played by Brooks in these films follow a similar trajectory but one is sinful and must pay for her sins, whereas the other is virtuous and is ultimately redeemed.  The theme of women being driven to prostitution by misfortune and male venality is one that Pabst had already dealt with in Joyless Street (1925), and together these three films provide a blistering indictment of society's attitudes towards women at a time when it was widely accepted that their sole raison d'être was to service the needs of men.  It's tempting to think of Pabst as a committed proto-feminist, but he was merely concerned with airing what he felt was a grave social injustice.

Like the half a dozen or so films that Pabst made prior to it, The Diary of a Lost Girl courted controversy with its candid portrayal of female sexuality and uncompromising social critique, which attributed the phenomenon of the 'fallen woman' to a society that allowed women to be exploited and maltreated by the dominant male.  If the film was controversial, the novel on which it was based - Margarete Böhme's Tagebuch einer Verlorenen - was several times more so when it was first published in 1905.  Despite being a worldwide bestseller, Böhme's book was widely condemned (even banned in some countries) for its perceived immorality.  Lurid though the novel is, it gave a powerful voice to Pabst's concerns about women's place in society, and may even have provided some impetus to the emerging suffragette movement.

The drama begins with a woman's misfortune that grimly foreshadows the fate of the central heroine played by Louise Brooks - Thymian, the 16-year-old daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning. After receiving a diary as a confirmation present, Thymian is puzzled by the abrupt dismissal of her father's housekeeper and her subsequent suicide. Henning's assistant, Meinert, takes advantage of Thymian's innocence to enlighten her, and in due course she gives birth to a little girl.  Thymian refuses to name her child's father but her diary betrays her.  When she protests she cannot marry Meinert as she has no love for him, the baby is taken away by a midwife and she is committed to a reformatory.  Here, Thymian is subjected to a strict regime imposed by a tyrannical matron and her cruel, bald-headed assistant.  With the help of the penniless Count Osdorff, who has been disowned by his wealthy uncle after failing at every profession, Thymian escapes from the reformatory with another of its unhappy inmates, Erika.

After learning that her child has died, Thymian takes up residence in a brothel and supplements her income by giving dancing lessons.  By this time, Thymian's father has married his new housekeeper, Meta.  When Henning sees Thymian at a nightclub he is so shocked that he refuses to have anything more to do with her.  On her father's death, three years later, Thymian learn that she has inherited his stake in his pharmacy, which is now owned outright by Meinert.  The latter has no qualms over evicting Meta and her two children from their home, but Thymian cannot bear this injustice and gives them her entire inheritance.  By this time, Count Osdorff has made plans to spend Thymian's newfound weath - when he discovers that the money is gone he commits suicide.  In a fit of remorse, the count's father offers Thymian a new life. Virtue is rewarded in the end.

As Lulu in Pandora's Box (1929), Louise Brooks is the liberated modern woman whose misfortunes are partly of her own doing (a reflection of the actress in her own colourful private life).  By contrast, the character she plays in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), a pharmacist's daughter named Thymian, is a blameless innocent whose corruption and dalliance with degradation are brought about by others - the heartless scoundrel who seduces her (a choice part for German cinema's premiere rent-a-cad Fritz Rasp) and the father (a man of staggering hypocrisy) who rejects her.  Thymian's inherent goodness is the breaking fluid that arrests her decline (a decline that Lulu, by contrast, cannot prevent) and, in recompense for her kindness towards others, fate ultimately rewards her.   Just as Pandora's Box ends in a tragedy that seems inescapable (the sinful must be punished if there is to be any sense to this universe), Diary of a Lost Girl concludes with its heroine not only saved from misfortune, but placed in a position where she can help others in her erstwhile sorry predicament. Although there is a clear moral point to be argued, Pabst never becomes preachy - his stance, as ever, is that of the dispassionate observer who leave it to us to draw our own conclusions, to judge and sympathise as we see fit.

Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl share similar themes and are made in a similar style, but there is a subtle tonal difference between them, as well as some unexpected humourous asides in the latter (the revolution in the reformatory makes an hilarious set-piece).  Both films showcase the New Objectivity approach that Pabst was keen to embrace in the late 1920s as an alternative to expressionism, which he deemed unsuitable for his realist dramas.  There are one or two obvious expressionistic touches, notably massive close-ups that serve either to distance us or draw us towards the protagonists (depending on the choice of camera angle and/or lighting).  Helped by its more noticeable use of real locations and less mannered style of acting, Diary of a Lost Girl has a greater sense of realism to it - indeed it occasionally foreshadows the neo-realist style that woud emerge in the next few decades (first in France, then in Italy).  One example of this is the entire seaside sequence near the end of the film, which has a similar documentary-style immediacy to what we find in Curt and Robert Siodmak's People on Sunday (1930) and Brooks' next vehicle Prix de Beauté (1930).

Louise Brooks is at her most captivating, most iconic in both films - how sad it is that only a director of Pabst's calibre could see what a remarkable actress she was and dared to take full advantage of it.  Her naturalistic style of acting, which is far better appreciated today than it was in the 1920s, made her a perfect screen anachronism.  Too far ahead of her time for Hollywood , she only really shone in the films that she made in Europe, where she came to be cherished as the emblem of the independent young woman.  What makes Brooks so exceptional is that she has, in addition to that seductive, siren-like quality that cinema expects of its biggest stars, the innocence and vulnerability of a sheltered teenager.  We saw plenty of the siren in Pandora's Box; in Diary of a Lost Girl, we see more of the helpless gamine, and it's revealing to compare Brooks' portrayal in these two films - they are so similar and yet so curiously distinct.  It is in the latter film that the actress perhaps reveals more of her true self - her performance has a greater ring of truth about it, implying Brooks identified more closely with the child-like Thymian than the vampish unfortunate Lulu.  Brooks is equally mesmerising in both films - indeed she is the essence of both films - and arguably no director of the silent era was as well served by his leading lady.