Review: 24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau is a beautifully messy Weimar tragedy

If you have eighty minutes to spare and want to feel slightly sad about humanity, 24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau is definitely worth a watch today. It is perfect for anyone who loves dusty Weimar-era melodramas where people look intensely at roulette wheels. But if you hate slow-moving black and white movies where characters make obviously terrible life choices, you should probably skip this one. 🎰

The setup is pretty simple. Helga, played by Henny Porten, is a rich widow wandering around the Mediterranean because she is sad about her dead husband. She ends up in Monte Carlo and sees this young guy, Sascha, who is absolutely losing his mind at the casino.

Walter Rilla plays Sascha, and honestly, his hands do most of the acting in the first ten minutes. The camera just stares at his twitching, sweaty fingers as he loses all his money. It is actually kind of mesmerizing, even if the scene goes on about 20 seconds too long.

Helga feels sorry for him and stops him from killing himself. She gives him money, a hotel room, and they end up spending the night together. It all happens so fast you barely have time to think about how weird the whole setup is.

The next day they travel to the mountains. This part of the movie feels like a totally different film, all bright and hopeful. Sascha promises to stop gambling and get a real job. You almost believe him, but you also know how these stories usually go.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of 24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau (1931) through its definitive frames.

There is this heavy, dark German mood hanging over the whole thing, similar to what you feel in Die Gespensteruhr. It is that classic Weimar dread where you just know everything is going to end badly.

Naturally, Helga gets scared of commitment and backs out of going to Marseille with him. Sascha goes right back to the casino, because of course he does. The tragedy is predictable, but it still sting a bit.

I love how cheap some of the hotel sets look. You can tell they spent most of the budget on Henny Porten's fancy hats. Some of those hats are so big they deserve their own credit in the cast list. 👒

The sound design is also pretty rough, since this was made right when talkies were starting out in Germany. Sometimes there is just this dead silence that makes you think your speakers broke. It actually makes the casino scenes feel more awkward and real, though.

Things I noticed while watching:

• Sascha's sweaty face is practically a character of its own.
• The roulette wheel spin sound is incredibly loud, like a machine gun going off in the room.
• Henny Porten looks like she wants to mother this man and kiss him at the same exact time, which is... a choice.
• The mountain scenery looks suspiciously like a painted sheet in a few shots.

It is not a masterpiece, but it has this weird, desperate energy that keeps you watching. It is short, sad, and very dramatic.