Diary of a Lost Girl
Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Year Released: 1929
Rating: 2.0
The "lost girl" in question (Louise Brooks) goes through an endless series of disasters and torments in her life, starting with getting impregnated by her father's Aryan assistant, then having her baby taken from her, then being sent to a reformatory, then being punished and humiliated in the reformatory, then escaping, then finding out her baby's dead, then ending up in a brothel, etc.: miraculously, throughout this endless string of punishments, Brooks' hair and two facial expressions (stone-faced and mildly startled) remain the same. Super fun for those that like to see their heroines battered to no end (and also fun for those who enjoy Pabst's penchant for run-on scenes with a limited number of inter-titles so it plays like bad pantomime), but I'll stick with the other silent directors who knew how to shape their scenes. And it's good for Brooks that she was a damn fine writer....
