| With its unconventional narrative and bizarre conclusion, Liliom has one of the strangest scenarios ever committed to celluloid by the great Austro-German director Fritz Lang.
Produced in France in 1934, after Lang had fled Germany en route to Hollywood, Liliom tells the story of a handsome but rough-edged carnival barker (Charles Boyer in the title role) whose job is, quite literally, to put bums in seats on the midway carousel. But Liliom’s endless flirtations with the skirts who ride his polished ponies, as it were, inflame his jealous boss and lover, Madame Muskat (Florelle), leading Liliom to quit the carnival in disgust. Penniless and unemployed, Liliom shacks up with Julie (Madeleine Ozeray), a waifish young woman he calls his "strange little girl," but domesticity proves to be the proud and free-spirited cad’s downfall.
It’s only too predictable that Liliom turns to crime as a means to escape the drudgery of his new life, but that’s where the story’s predictability ends. Based on the stage play by Austro-Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar, Liliom contains various unusual elements, foremost among them its morally conflicted protagonist who is hardly what you could call "likable." With his charm and brashness, Liliom isn’t thoroughly unlikable either, though, and Lang was obviously drawn to this flawed figure – much as he was to Peter Lorre’s murderer in M (1931) and as he would be later to Edward G. Robinson’s gullible chump in Scarlet Street (1945).
Still, what is unique about Liliom in the context of Lang’s work is that it offers redemption to its protagonist – and it is Liliom’s decision to decline that redemption that makes the film more interesting yet. Suffice to say that the plot takes a turn for the weirdly fantastic about two-thirds of the way through the film, and the last third plays out in an expressionist heaven, where angelicrats run the place like an earthly police station presided over not by God but by the Chief Inspector. Liliom can’t abide the redemption offered to him by these authoritarian toadies, partly because it’s against his nature and partly because he sees that their version of justice involves no mercy.
Instead, it is Liliom’s strange little girl, Julie, who must teach us of forgiveness. While she is perhaps just like any other long-suffering martyr, she might even be able to teach the divine Chief Inspector a thing or two in this regard. Ultimately, what Lang shows us through Julie is that to love another person is not to try to change them, but to accept them as they are. Profound? No. Impossible? Maybe. Maybe not.
This is one reason Lang is regarded as a master of cinema – he understands human behaviour instinctively and does not shy away from revealing it in all its individual perversity. In M, he makes us sympathize, however briefly, with a child-killer. In Liliom, it’s a wife abuser who momentarily earns our understanding, if not our sympathies.
OK, so it’s not politically correct, but who said that art has to be? Or even should be? Lang achieves his vision with panache, verve and high style. For example, although Liliom was made relatively early in the talkie era, Lang fully embraced the new technology to give us insight into Liliom’s innermost thoughts in crucial scenes. By today’s standards, it’s not a subtle use of sound, but it is nevertheless effective. And it reveals the character’s human frailties, without justifying or condemning his actions. If that’s not the sign of a masterpiece, I don’t know what is. |
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