Calvaire d’amour is the fifth film Viatcheslav Tourjansky made for the production company Ermolieff-Cinéma. In this film, this veteran of Russian cinema (he made his debut in 1912) put together a melodrama, his specialty once he arrived in France, depicting “the triumph of ill-fated love against the domineering evil of man”, incarnated by the impeccable Charles Vanel. The press at the time saw in this film (which the Cinémathèque de Toulouse kept an incomplete nitrate print of) “a beautiful fresco of women’s pain, relentless misfortune up until the last moment, a harmonious progression of action, and then the final dramatic surprise”. Undoubtedly a melodrama that is a little antiquated, but that, in its best moments (the last reel), puts into practice the lessons learned from Griffith’s Intolerance.
Camille Blot-Wellens – Christophe Gauthier