Barcarole

The famous first German film of Lída Baarová. In the mid-1930s, German cinema was looking for new stars to replace those who had left for political reasons. Barcarole tells the love story of one Venetian night in 1911. Everything is at stake, love and life. The film is loosely inspired by Jacques Offenbach's opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" (1881), and even his music appears in the film. Specifically, it is Hoffmann's story "Die Geschichte vom verlorenen Spiegelbild" from "Die Abenteuer der Sylvesternacht" (1815), which originally took place in Florence, but Offenbach's opera, in the 4th act called Giulietta, moved the story to Venice. This explains a lot. But while Hoffmann and Offenbach were still in the general consciousness in the 1930s, today it is somewhat more complicated, and the film Barcarole may seem like a typical pre-war melodrama to an uninterested viewer. However, the motives and actions of the characters have much deeper roots, and if we take this into account, we can better enjoy the film. (19/11/2023)