THE INDIAN TOMB PART 2 (1921)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                          It's now over a year since I screened the first, over-two-hours part of Joe May's INDIAN TOMB. I rendered no firm opinion, since I hadn't seen the second part. Now that I have done so, and can consider the two parts together, I can say that although May's epic doesn't stand as one of the great silent films, it deserves to be regarded as a strong experiment with what I earlier called the "painterly" approach to cinema.                                                                     

When last we left European innocents architect Herbert Rowland and his fiancee Irene, they were stuck in the palace of the Maharaja Ayan (Conrad Veidt). Rowland came to India in the belief that he had been hired to design a tomb for Ayan's dead wife Savitri, and Irene, worried that Rowland was in over his head, followed. After many long, brooding scenes on the massive edifices of Ayan's India, the Europeans learn that because of Savirti's adultery with an Englishman, Ayan plans to kill his wife and then entomb her. Rowland is torn between trying to flee with Irene and seeking to talk Ayan out of such an uncivilized enormity. However, though the innocents don't know it, Ayan has already undertaken murderous actions against the Englishman (Paul Richter). Part One ends on a cliffhanger as to whether he will survive the attacks of Ayan's soldiers. He does, but he's also captured and fed to some tigers. Rather a depressing outcome for a cliffhanger.                                           

  Rowland and Irene don't see this, but they're kept in the loop by Savitri's maid, and they consider making a run for it. Ayan, who has forbidden his people to talk with the Westerners, orders the maid to do a little dance for him at a celebration, and she's killed by a poisonous snake. This decides the two guests on taking their leave, and they take Savitri with them, I guess out of sheer decency, though that gesture guarantees that Ayan will pursue with all his resources.    

In theory, one might think this is where the adventure gets going. However, whatever may have happened in Thea Von Harbou's original novel, or in Fritz Lang's scenario for the movie, Joe May flenses all of the excitement from the conflict with medium and long shots designed to place maximum emphasis upon the imposing buildings in the background. Rowland has a couple of lackluster fistfights with Indian guards, and then he, Irene, and Savitri depart in a boat. Maybe there was a scene left out somewhere, because when Ayan and his men show up on the quay, all the boats are floating out of reach. Did Rowland cut all the moorings? One minion dies by crocodile attack while trying to fetch a boat for his rajah. But it's only a minor delay. The three fugitives try to escape via a high mountain pass, but Ayan and his horde are right on their tail. Somehow Irene falls behind and Ayan captures her, demanding the return of Savitri for Irene's life. But Savitri has one last gambit to stay out of the hands of her husband-- one that causes Ayan far more pain than any physical assault could have.                                                                          

Though the mystic yogi Ramigami barely appears in Part 2, I consider that the second section keeps the same phenomenality as the first, where the ascetic is shown performing literal miracles. But though director May acts as if the massive Indian sets are his movie's only attraction, Conrad Veidt sells his brooding, Byronic sinner with a set of larger-than-life gestures, and effectively steals the movie from the other performers. I don't make the Byron comparison lightly. I've no idea what Von Harbou's novel was like, but May turns its narrative into the movie-equivalent of one of those wordy verse-dramas from Romantic authors like Byron and Shelley, May's characters often seem like humanized ants, doomed to be forever dwarfed by the heaven-challenging edifices they have created. Only Ayan, "sympathetic villain" though he is, seems equal to the monumentalism, for his love for Savitri is so heartfelt that he's willing to kill for it. In marked contrast to many similar melodramas, Savitri never offers an excuse for her adulterous actions, like being betrayed or treated cruelly by her husband. One doesn't even know if she ever felt anything for Ayan, only that within the scope of the movie, another man holds her love. And Ayan can only seek to make her betrayal into a monument to his lost love-- which is what Rowland ends up completing for the rajah, before he and Irene go back to the safety of a very un-exotic Europe.