Story of a Sin: A heavy, beautiful mess

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies that feel like a damp, cold afternoon in a library, you'll probably dig Story of a Sin. It’s definitely not a breezy Friday night watch. If you want fast pacing or, you know, people actually talking like humans instead of reciting pamphlets on virtue, you might want to skip this one.

The film opens with this incredibly stifling scene of the girl confessing her sins. I mean, she's barely a teenager and she’s already being told that her own brain is basically a minefield of bad ideas. It sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the misery.

The vibe

There's a lot of staring out of windows in this movie. A whole lot of it. Sometimes I wondered if the actors were waiting for a cue or if they were just genuinely exhausted by the script. The way the light hits the floorboards in those hallway shots? It feels remarkably lived-in, even if the house itself feels like a cage.

The boarder shows up and everything changes, but not in the way a Hollywood flick would do it. There’s no big explosion of passion. It’s all stolen glances and people standing way too close to each other in narrow doorways. It’s uncomfortable, and I think that’s the point.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Story of a Sin (1933) through its definitive frames.

I couldn't help but compare the heavy, judgmental atmosphere to something like Way Down East. Both movies are obsessed with the idea that one mistake can ruin a person’s entire life. It’s a dated way of thinking, but when you’re watching it, you start to feel the panic right along with the characters.

Small observations

• The lace curtains in the living room look like they haven't been washed since the turn of the century.
• There’s a moment where a character drops a teacup and the sound is just… way too loud. It made me jump.
• The background extras in the street scenes seem more interested in the camera than in whatever drama is happening in the foreground.

It drags in the middle. I checked my watch twice, which is never a great sign. But then you hit a sequence where the silence just stretches out, and you realize the director is actually making you sit in the awkwardness of the girl’s choices. It’s effective, even if it feels a bit mean-spirited at times.

It reminded me a bit of the suffocating weight you find in Grekh. They both share that same DNA of people making terrible decisions because they were never taught how to make good ones.

Anyway, it’s not a masterpiece. It’s just a really solid, depressing look at what happens when you treat love like a crime. Maybe keep the lights on for this one. It gets pretty gloomy. 🕯️