Dawn to Dawn. 1933. Directed by Joseph Berne. (Titled "Black Dawn" on print.)

(9/19/01)

As I watched Dawn to Dawn I couldn't help thinking about how it bears the same date as Machaty's Ecstasy. The two films resemble each other. In both films a woman is trapped with an older man and seeks escape with a younger one. Both films seem to exult in nature and in both there is a minimum of dialogue. They both have a frankness about matters of sex. They both end on a note of defeat for the young lovers. And they both have a rich photographic beauty.

Dawn to Dawn is very, very good. It has a very simple story. A young woman lives on a farm with her father who is disabled in some way. He is possessive of her and keeps her away from other people, especially men. She is out ploughing the fields (or something similar.) She takes a nap and is found by a young stranger. She wakes and they make love. He wants to stay with her, but of course the father will not permit it. The stranger wants her to go away with him and she almost does, but she cannot leave her father. The stranger goes, taking with him her only chance for escape and the father appears to die.

The characters in Dawn to Dawn are more like archetypal figures than particular people. They really convey a sense that this is a universal drama being enacted rather than a story about these particular individuals. On that level the film is very convincing.

One thing I liked very much is that the young woman was no great beauty. She had an ordinariness about her which made the film that much more convincing. The young man's voice was somehow disappointing and didn't go with his appearance. He was a stranger who just appears out of nowhere and perhaps because of that his voice should have had a more special quality to it. I'm not sure what it was, but his appearance from nowhere had an impact, but when he started to speak the effect was, well, maybe not shattered, but certainly not enhanced.

The photography captured the atmosphere of this beautiful location--nature full of life and growth and sunlight which is paradoxically a prison. It is beautiful and oppressive at the same time. And the outcome was such a waste because the stranger was willing to stay and help work the land. I wish the woman had been assertive enough to give the father a choice--accept the stranger, who would certainly have been able to pull his weight, or lose her. But she didn't.