In the few Swedish silent films easily accessible on home video today, the sex comedy of "Erotikon" has no comparison. The other available Swedish films of Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjöström are heavily dramatic. These include "Ingeborg Holm" (1913), "Terje Vigen" (1917), "The Outlaw and His Wife" (1918), "Sir Arne's Treasure" (1919), "The Phantom Carriage" (1921) and "The Atonement of Gosta Berling" (1924). The Dane Carl Theodor Dreyer made the comedy "The Parson's Widow" (1920) for a Swedish company, but it's a different sort of comedy and concerns different social classes. "Erotikon", on the other hand, is of the romantic infidelities of the upper classes. It's more akin to a Cecil B. DeMille or Ernst Lubitsch sex comedy: for instance, DeMille's "Don't Change Your Husband" (1919) or Lubitsch's "The Marriage Circle" (1924).
In "Erotikon", a professor's wife spends her time with expensive fashion and two other men--mostly with a sculptor (played by would-be transatlantic star Lars Hanson) who also happens to be a good friend of the professor--as well as with a baron who has an aviation hobby. Supposedly, a professor's salary was quite good, because he and his seemingly unemployed wife are able to afford a luxurious home and some ridiculously expensive outfits for her. She even has a driver who she dictates to through a car phone. (Apparently, a solution to the poverty of the professor in Lois Weber's 1921 American film "The Blot" was for him to move to Sweden.) Based on how popular this genre has been in film history, audiences enjoy the escapism of the fashion and infidelities of the upper classes. For me, however--92 years removed from the initial release of "Erotikon"--this comedy isn't funny. It's at times even dull and dramatic in tone. The professor's wife is an unappealing character, who wastes her husband's salary on fashion and who prefers an overly dramatic sculptor who fawns over her to her more subdued (and, I'd add, tolerable) husband. The professor, for his part, also prefers the fawning over him by his niece and seems content if he only had a wife who'd cook for him and fix his tie. If this is what is meant by "sophisticated", it's an undesirable quality.
Film historian Peter Cowie ("Scandinavian Cinema") says "Erotikon" was "sensational at the time because of its lack of inhibitions and its risqué innuendo." That may've been so, but there's no longer anything sensational about a sex comedy where it takes over an hour before anyone kisses anyone, and contemporaries DeMille and Lubitsch weren't so shy.
Nevertheless, "Erotikon", for its time, looks as expensive as its characters' lives. In addition to the rich interior and costume designs, the film features an elaborately choreographed play-within-the-play and some impressive aerial photography. The cinematography also features some good use of irises, including as scene transitions, and there's enough scene dissection here for a 1920 production.
Its interesting self-reflexivity, however, is what raises "Erotikon" above the mediocre. In an early scene, the professor gives a lecture on the mating habits of beetles, which foreshadows the mating habits of the narrative's human characters. Later in the film, the play-within-the-play mirrors the outer narrative's love triangle. After the play, the professor expresses how he prefers the happy endings in movies; his sculptor friend and competitor, however, prefers tragedies. According to film historians, this self-reflexive comedy wasn't an anomaly for Sweden. One film that still exists from this period, but which hasn't been widely accessible on home video, that is high on my viewing wish list is "Thomas Graal's Best Film" (1917), which Stiller directed and which stars Sjöström. Swedish silent cinema was a golden age in film history; the sampling available today just leaves me wanting more.
In "Erotikon", a professor's wife spends her time with expensive fashion and two other men--mostly with a sculptor (played by would-be transatlantic star Lars Hanson) who also happens to be a good friend of the professor--as well as with a baron who has an aviation hobby. Supposedly, a professor's salary was quite good, because he and his seemingly unemployed wife are able to afford a luxurious home and some ridiculously expensive outfits for her. She even has a driver who she dictates to through a car phone. (Apparently, a solution to the poverty of the professor in Lois Weber's 1921 American film "The Blot" was for him to move to Sweden.) Based on how popular this genre has been in film history, audiences enjoy the escapism of the fashion and infidelities of the upper classes. For me, however--92 years removed from the initial release of "Erotikon"--this comedy isn't funny. It's at times even dull and dramatic in tone. The professor's wife is an unappealing character, who wastes her husband's salary on fashion and who prefers an overly dramatic sculptor who fawns over her to her more subdued (and, I'd add, tolerable) husband. The professor, for his part, also prefers the fawning over him by his niece and seems content if he only had a wife who'd cook for him and fix his tie. If this is what is meant by "sophisticated", it's an undesirable quality.
Film historian Peter Cowie ("Scandinavian Cinema") says "Erotikon" was "sensational at the time because of its lack of inhibitions and its risqué innuendo." That may've been so, but there's no longer anything sensational about a sex comedy where it takes over an hour before anyone kisses anyone, and contemporaries DeMille and Lubitsch weren't so shy.
Nevertheless, "Erotikon", for its time, looks as expensive as its characters' lives. In addition to the rich interior and costume designs, the film features an elaborately choreographed play-within-the-play and some impressive aerial photography. The cinematography also features some good use of irises, including as scene transitions, and there's enough scene dissection here for a 1920 production.
Its interesting self-reflexivity, however, is what raises "Erotikon" above the mediocre. In an early scene, the professor gives a lecture on the mating habits of beetles, which foreshadows the mating habits of the narrative's human characters. Later in the film, the play-within-the-play mirrors the outer narrative's love triangle. After the play, the professor expresses how he prefers the happy endings in movies; his sculptor friend and competitor, however, prefers tragedies. According to film historians, this self-reflexive comedy wasn't an anomaly for Sweden. One film that still exists from this period, but which hasn't been widely accessible on home video, that is high on my viewing wish list is "Thomas Graal's Best Film" (1917), which Stiller directed and which stars Sjöström. Swedish silent cinema was a golden age in film history; the sampling available today just leaves me wanting more.