The Queen of Death Review: A Messy Silent Movie About Bad Vacations

If you are looking for something to watch while you're half-disturbed by how modern people's problems are, this is a good pick. You should watch it if you like melodrama that feels a bit sweaty and desperate. 🏔️

Most people will probably hate it because it’s silent and the plot moves like a tired mule. But for the three of us who like seeing how people in 1928 handled excess, it is actually pretty interesting.

The whole thing starts with this couple who are just... exhausted. They live in the city and do too much of everything, and you can tell by the way the actress Chita Foras leans against furniture like her bones are made of jelly.

So they go to the mountains to 'recover.' It’s that classic idea that if you just change your scenery, your soul will magically stop being trash. 🌲

Of course, it doesn't work. The movie spends a lot of time showing them looking at the view and looking bored by it.

Nelo Cosimi plays the lover, and he has this look like he’s constantly searching for a mirror. He doesn't take long to start bothering a local countrywoman, which is just classic city-guy behavior in these old movies.

It’s funny how the movie treats the mountains as this pure place that these two are just staining with their presence. The contrast between the big, empty hills and their cramped, busy emotions is the best part of the film.

The scene where she invites the mestizo to her bedroom feels weirdly tense. It’s shot with these heavy shadows that make the room feel much smaller than it probably was. 🕯️

I noticed that in one shot, you can see a fly crawling on the wall behind Floren Delbene’s head. He’s trying to be all dramatic and serious, and there’s just this bug doing its own thing in 1928. I love stuff like that.

The pacing is a bit of a mess, honestly. It feels like they had enough story for twenty minutes but had to stretch it out to a full feature by making people walk across rooms very slowly.

If you’ve seen Flor de durazno, you’ll recognize some of the same vibes here. It’s that Argentinian rural drama style where everything feels heavy and fated to end badly.

There is this one moment where the woman is looking out the window and the light hits her eyes just right. It’s the only time she looks like she actually regrets her life, but then the next scene starts and she’s back to being mean.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Queen of Death (1928) through its definitive frames.

I don't think the director really knew how to make us like these people. Or maybe we aren't supposed to like them? They just feel like people you’d avoid at a party.

The 'Queen of Death' title is a bit much, really. It sounds like a horror movie or a fantasy epic, but it's just about people being bad at relationships in the woods.

The mountain scenery is nice, though the film stock is pretty grainy in the version I saw. You can almost feel the cold air in the outdoor shots, which makes the stuffy bedroom scenes feel even more gross.

I kept thinking about The Deadlier Sex while watching this. Both movies have this weird obsession with how the 'wild' changes people, or fails to change them.

The ending doesn't really feel like an ending. It just sort of... stops? Like the camera ran out of film and they all just went home.

It’s not a masterpiece like Tartuffe, but it has this raw, unpolished feeling that I appreciate. It feels like a real attempt to capture a specific kind of sadness that comes from having too much money and no hobbies. 🍷

Don't expect a lot of action. There are no car chases, obviously, just a lot of intense staring and people walking in and out of doors with dramatic intent.

One reaction shot of Chita Foras lingers for so long I thought my screen had frozen. She just stares into the middle distance until you start looking at the wallpaper behind her.

Is it a great film? Probably not. But it’s a real one. It doesn't try to give you a happy lesson or a clean moral, it just shows you two people ruining a perfectly good vacation.

If you're into silent cinema and want something that isn't a comedy or a big epic, give it a look. Just don't expect to feel good afterward. 💀

The way the guy tries to seduce the countrywoman is so awkward. He basically just stands near her and looks intense until she gets uncomfortable. It's painful to watch, but maybe that was the point.

I wonder if people back then found this scandalous. Today it just feels like a very slow episode of a reality show where everyone wears better hats.

Anyway, it's worth a watch if you have a quiet evening and a bottle of wine. Just like the characters, only hopefully you have better self-control than they do.