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Marlene Dietrich is on a train full of mystery and danger in Shanghai Express |
Its 1931 and China is in the middle of a civil war. Boarding
a train bound for – you guessed it – Shanghai, is a veritable smorgasbord of
ex-pats and mysterious travellers. First among them – and reviled by all but
one of the other passengers – is infamous “coaster” ‘Shanghai Lily’ (Marlene
Dietrich), a woman who (as she says) needed to go through more than one man to
get that nickname. The only person in first class who can stand her is Chinese
“coaster” Hui Fri (Anna May Wong). The man who has the most cause to resent her
though is army physician Captain Donald Harvey (Clive Brook). The two of them
were deeply in love, but misunderstandings came between them and he’s nursed a
grudge ever since. The rest of the train carry their own petty prejudices – but
all these are put in perspective when the train is hijacked by rebel leader
General Chang (Warner Orland), who holds Donald hostage to get the release of
his right-hand man from the Chinese. What will Shanghai Lili aka
Madeline do to save the life of the love of her life?
Clocking in at a slim and efficient 82 minutes, Shanghai
Express still manages to have a languid, patient pace to it, taking its
time to establish places, relationships and stakes. Part of that also comes
from the film being set in a sort of imaginarium idea of China, born entirely
out of von Sternberg’s brain. With his long-standing disinterest in realism,
von Sternberg’s film is a sort of fever-dream image of China. So it’s kind of
fitting the film plays out like a dream, right down to its own pace. At times
it rushes swiftly on, at others the stakes hardly seem to matter as the
characters move freely around while in supposed captivity and barely consider their
lives at risk. At the end of the film, the train arrives (despite the violence
en route, the fact its late gets the most comment) and the characters simply
get on with their lives.
Perhaps its all part of von Sternberg’s deconstruction of
these Europeans and Yanks, whose only engagement with this foreign country is
that it should be made as much like the West as possible. Most of the
characters on board – with the exception of the women – are selfish, pompous,
lecherous, prejudiced, greedy or some combination of all of the above. While
they wear an air of respectability, it doesn’t take long to shake them from it.
And their judgement of others is swift and irreversible. Even Donald, our nominal
hero, fits this bill – he frequently rushes to judgement and pig-headedly
sticks there, regardless of logic and experience.
In among this, it’s the women who emerge as the only
characters who demonstrate pluck, loyalty, empathy and decency. Anna May Wong’s
looked-down-on courtesan goes through a torrid time – demeaned on the train
then assaulted by the lecherous Chang not once but twice (the second time an
off-screen rape that none of the Western characters ever feel the need to
comment on). Despite this, she’s one of the few who acts to defend someone
other than herself, and her actions are (eventually) what brings liberation for
the passengers (again not that they, or anyone else from the West, thanks her
for it). It’s a neatly reserved performance from Wong (perhaps the best in the film), her eyes conveying an
only thinly concealed contempt for those around her.
The closest thing she has to a confidante is of course
Shanghai Lily herself. This is the perfect role for Marlene Dietrich, a woman
who is both imperious and fragile, proud but willing to debase herself to save
the man she loves, cold and knowing but also strangely naïve and romantic. As
with much of her best work, what she does so brilliantly here is to bring
together a host of contradictions that really shouldn’t make sense (except
perhaps as some sort of sexual fantasy of von Sternberg’s?) and make it the
most charismatic and arresting part of the film. Dietrich is not the most accomplished of actors - but she is an accomplished presence and undeniably charismatic.
Lily proves that she may be a hard-nosed player of the game,
but that she’s more than capable of loyalty and faith to those she loves. She has
no hesitation when asked to put herself in the way of danger for them. It’s a
shame Dietrich doesn’t have a more charismatic scene partner than the rather
bland Clive Brook (who ends up looking very forced as a romantic lead – you end
up wondering what on earth this woman sees in him). But Dietrich’s movie-star
magnetism holds much of the plot of the film together and provides much of its
emotion.
It’s all part of the film’s beauty and the skills behind its
shooting. It starts with a series of flourishing tracking shots through busy
train stations (something it returns to later on). Scenes that coat the film in
smoke, with just backlighting, while soldiers and passengers move in front like
a lantern show are extraordinary. The images make superb use of ultra-dark
blacks to introduce frequently gorgeous images. With von Sternberg’s setting
that only just touches realism in the faintest way possible, it makes for a
wonderfully framed exotic fever dream – just as the film itself oscillates
between action and languid romance in its pacing.
Shanghai Express is almost impossible to categorise.
A romance with thrills in the middle, an action film where urgency is often off
the table, a mystery that travels with an almost pre-ordained certainty towards
its goal, it truly has a dream-like logic. And I guess if it’s all von
Sternberg’s dream, it makes sense that it’s most striking scenes see Dietrich,
perfectly lit, with smoke stroking itself around her. After all her charisma is
at the film’s heart.
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