“The love story between the “gypsy” Zidra and the lieutenant develops on the basis of deception: the strange woman stages a chance meeting in the forest; the lieutenant is taken by it. She pursues the petty financial interests of those who have no chance of ever entering into society’s big business, and puts herself at the temporary disposal of a spy for a fee. The lieutenant, on the other hand, has the eye of a hunter, regarding everything that crosses his path in the forest as his prey. In the course of the film his gaze alters, from being a grasping tool to being a receiver of the woman’s light footed transgressive movements. He is enthralled by her bare footed freedom to climb over walls and balance on the barrel of a cannon. And the more he is captivated by the sight of her, the “truer” her expressive movements become, shaking off any aspect of calculation and becoming filled with devotion. However, their relationship shatters in the walls of the militarized Wilhelminian society, walls which the strange woman can easily overcome, but which hold the man prisoner”.

Heide Schlupmann, Asta Nielsen, la ragazza senza patria, “Cinegrafie”, Bologna, n. 12, 1999