White Paradise

An adventurous Czechoslovak silent-film classic with live musical accompaniment.

We all have a soft spot for the girl in the forest in the Czechoslovak favourite Tre nøtter til Askepott. White Paradise is not a fairy tale as such, but a romantic and suspenseful melodrama with clear Cinderella-like elements, about another girl in another forest.

Nina is a kind, creative young orphan who lives in the countryside and works at the inn run by her guardian, the unpleasant and greedy Jakub. On Christmas Eve, she lets her imagination wander, and an accident occurs. Nina flees into the winter forest, where Ivan is also wandering. He was wrongly convicted and has escaped from prison to get home to his sick mother with medicine. Meanwhile, a Christmas tree stands in the forest, covered in burning candles.

Anny Ondra and Karel Lamač play Nina and Ivan; Lamač also directed the film. Together with cinematographer Otto Heller and screenwriter Václav Wasserman, they were considered a central quartet in early Czechoslovak cinema.

As a teenager, Anny Ondra defied her parents and moved in with her boyfriend Karel Lamač, determined to become an actress. Their relationship ended after a few years, but they remained friends and continued working together through the production company Ondra-Lamač Film. Together, they made films including Der erste Kuß, Die von Rummelplatz and Klein Dorrit. Anny also worked in Britain and was Alfred Hitchcock’s first blonde, appearing in The Manxman and, most notably, Blackmail (1929). Lamač is said to have died in Ondra’s arms in 1952. By then, he had directed more than 100 fiction and documentary films in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, as well as working as a journalist, translator and lecturer, among other things.

Otto Heller is regarded as the most important cinematographer in Czechoslovakia before the Second World War. He and Lamač left the country after the Nazi invasion in 1938. White Paradise is an excellent example of Heller’s skill, with some truly wonderful scenes, including a beautiful and elegant daydream sequence. Heller later became a British citizen and continued his career there. He is perhaps best known for his work on films such as The Ladykillers, Richard III, Peeping Tom and The Ipcress File.

White Paradise was a great success when it was released in cinemas in 1924 and also attracted attention beyond Czechoslovakia’s borders. The film was restored by Det tsjekkiske filmarkivet in 2016, and we are screening the restored version this evening.

Lamač had ambitious plans for the film’s use of colour, which combines tinting and toning. Together with laboratory assistant Frantíšek Rubáš, he created the film’s beautiful palette. The sunny mountain scenes are yellow, the evening and night scenes are blue, and at sunset we see blue with touches of pink. Interior scenes lit by oil lamps are orange, and there are other colour effects too. The result is a beautiful, atmospheric Christmas film for the whole family! Cinemateket pianist Kjetil Schjander Luhr accompanies the film.