One line review: A slow narrative and dubiously mixed message cannot be saved by fine performances and visuals.
It's true for many silent films that a dominant strength of the movie is in the imagery - and so it is here, from the very beginning. Costume design is sharp and eye-catching, and filming locations and set design are broadly just as fetching. Very importantly, the assembled cast embodies their roles most excellently: for lack of sound and verbal dialogue, actors' facial expressions and body language are essential for carrying the picture. Star Rudolph Valentino especially demonstrates the nuance of performance that the silent era demands, capably realizing Juan Gallardo's character arc. Though not appearing until much later, Nita Naldi is also outstanding as Doña Sol, giving the conniving woman of society a playful deviousness that at its best is a delicious treat for viewers.
For all the skill of cast and crew, however, I find myself having a hard time meaningfully engaging with 'Blood and sand.'
There is a clear message at the heart of the film. Text at the beginning works diligently to build it, and it defines the narrative as it's imparted plainly with an intertitle partway through: "Happiness and prosperity built on cruelty and bloodshed cannot survive." To be sure, it's an admirable theme to convey, and its application to bull-fighting - a sport built on barbaric violence - is paramount, here specifically and in real life generally. If nothing else is true, this movie endeavors to ensure the audience knows the reasoning behind its story.
Yet to build based first and foremost on the communication of a very particular meaning can be ruinous if the finished work cannot otherwise stand on its own merits. Consider "Christian rock," a genre of music that has no aim but to espouse religious beliefs - and does so at the sacrifice of engaging, impactful songwriting. Alternatively, movies with a prime directive at their core sometimes simply have difficulty balancing the intent with the content, and one or both may suffer as a result. Unfortunately, I think this is the great deficiency of 'Blood and sand.'
Even as occasional moralizing intertitles are interspersed throughout the length - a full half hour of the runtime has passed and it feels like everything preceding the marriage of Juan and Carmen (Lila Lee) has been naught but half-hearted exposition. Nearly thirty minutes later, Juan meets Doña Sol face to face, and again it's hard not to feel like the preceding 55 minutes have been only exposition, a series of scenes not given deep consideration beyond preparation for the length to come. And still - still! - while the plot grows more pointed, it continues to develop at a slow pace that dampens its effectiveness. The final outcome is that a feature with a length of 108 minutes seems to have roughly 78 minutes of exposition - fine in visualization, questionable in overall realization - and only 30 minutes of real substance.
This is all to say nothing of infrequent cuts to another character, Don Joselito (Charles Belcher), who serves as both observer and commentator, and whose imperious pedagogy echoes or even supplies the high-brow philosophizing of the intertitles. Yet his part in the film is superfluous, and unnecessary to what it wishes to relate. Likewise, the B-plot of the bandit Plumitas (Walter Long) is supposed to be a dark mirror of Juan's path, yet is frankly extraneous.
And still, uneven narrative progression hardly describes the full extent of the problems at hand. The prominent pedantry of 'Blood and sand' is further undercut by the title's craft. The protagonist is a bullfighter, yet the feature is much more about the personal drama outside the arena. The message so emphatically stated as the ultimate reason for his downfall - his participation in such inhuman activity - gets shuttled about with seeming uncertainty, and its insertion almost appears to be a last-minute choice of "Well, this has to go somewhere, so this will be the place." With that in mind, moreover - despite how concretely the movie wants to speak to the vulgar cruelty of bullfighting, that message is confused by distinctly including others, and weaving them in more organically. There's an undeniable misogynist bent to the story, as other text tells us that the very fact of Juan's involvement with Doña Sol is his destruction: "Woman was created for the happiness of man," it intones with disregard for women's agency and autonomy, "but instead, she destroyed the tranquility of the world." That sexism is further cemented with a line of printed dialogue in which Doña Sol seems to openly invite domestic violence so long as it means Juan will be with her. The tawdry spectacle of their affair, 'Blood and sand' suggests, weighs so heavily on the matador that a moment of reflection is distraction enough to kill him. And we're still not done, because 'Blood and sand' - through unnecessary side character Don Joselito - also expresses that the masses cheering the spectacle of brutality and death, ever hungering for sensationalism at any cost, are the real monsters.
One could reasonably argue that all these factors play into the course of events and the protagonist's demise. If that's what 'Blood and sand' wanted to do, then it was far from articulate in its dispensation of wisdom. Instead it feels much more like a game of moving the goalposts to satisfy every equivocation: "This is the true meaning! No, that is! No, this is!"
I'm not familiar with Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel, from which screenwriter June Mathis adapted her screenplay. I've seen a few other features Mathis wrote, and found they ranged from flawed but entertaining, to classic and timeless. I've not had opportunity to watch other renditions of Ibáñez's novel. I have no point of comparison to make, and can only judge this film on its own merits. I think the technical craft is swell. I think the writing is a jumbled mess.
Maybe a second watch would solidify the feature for me in ways that a single pass could not. Yet with so many other movies available of which to partake, I struggle to justify returning to this one. Great performances and strong attention to visual details are to be commended, but they can't outweigh unconvincing story development and disordered thematic construction. In my opinion this is the weakest of those Valentino flicks I've watched, and the weakest I've seen to date of silent films at large. 'Blood and sand' was received well in 1922, and is still held in high regard today. But for my part, I'm not impressed - only disappointed.
It's true for many silent films that a dominant strength of the movie is in the imagery - and so it is here, from the very beginning. Costume design is sharp and eye-catching, and filming locations and set design are broadly just as fetching. Very importantly, the assembled cast embodies their roles most excellently: for lack of sound and verbal dialogue, actors' facial expressions and body language are essential for carrying the picture. Star Rudolph Valentino especially demonstrates the nuance of performance that the silent era demands, capably realizing Juan Gallardo's character arc. Though not appearing until much later, Nita Naldi is also outstanding as Doña Sol, giving the conniving woman of society a playful deviousness that at its best is a delicious treat for viewers.
For all the skill of cast and crew, however, I find myself having a hard time meaningfully engaging with 'Blood and sand.'
There is a clear message at the heart of the film. Text at the beginning works diligently to build it, and it defines the narrative as it's imparted plainly with an intertitle partway through: "Happiness and prosperity built on cruelty and bloodshed cannot survive." To be sure, it's an admirable theme to convey, and its application to bull-fighting - a sport built on barbaric violence - is paramount, here specifically and in real life generally. If nothing else is true, this movie endeavors to ensure the audience knows the reasoning behind its story.
Yet to build based first and foremost on the communication of a very particular meaning can be ruinous if the finished work cannot otherwise stand on its own merits. Consider "Christian rock," a genre of music that has no aim but to espouse religious beliefs - and does so at the sacrifice of engaging, impactful songwriting. Alternatively, movies with a prime directive at their core sometimes simply have difficulty balancing the intent with the content, and one or both may suffer as a result. Unfortunately, I think this is the great deficiency of 'Blood and sand.'
Even as occasional moralizing intertitles are interspersed throughout the length - a full half hour of the runtime has passed and it feels like everything preceding the marriage of Juan and Carmen (Lila Lee) has been naught but half-hearted exposition. Nearly thirty minutes later, Juan meets Doña Sol face to face, and again it's hard not to feel like the preceding 55 minutes have been only exposition, a series of scenes not given deep consideration beyond preparation for the length to come. And still - still! - while the plot grows more pointed, it continues to develop at a slow pace that dampens its effectiveness. The final outcome is that a feature with a length of 108 minutes seems to have roughly 78 minutes of exposition - fine in visualization, questionable in overall realization - and only 30 minutes of real substance.
This is all to say nothing of infrequent cuts to another character, Don Joselito (Charles Belcher), who serves as both observer and commentator, and whose imperious pedagogy echoes or even supplies the high-brow philosophizing of the intertitles. Yet his part in the film is superfluous, and unnecessary to what it wishes to relate. Likewise, the B-plot of the bandit Plumitas (Walter Long) is supposed to be a dark mirror of Juan's path, yet is frankly extraneous.
And still, uneven narrative progression hardly describes the full extent of the problems at hand. The prominent pedantry of 'Blood and sand' is further undercut by the title's craft. The protagonist is a bullfighter, yet the feature is much more about the personal drama outside the arena. The message so emphatically stated as the ultimate reason for his downfall - his participation in such inhuman activity - gets shuttled about with seeming uncertainty, and its insertion almost appears to be a last-minute choice of "Well, this has to go somewhere, so this will be the place." With that in mind, moreover - despite how concretely the movie wants to speak to the vulgar cruelty of bullfighting, that message is confused by distinctly including others, and weaving them in more organically. There's an undeniable misogynist bent to the story, as other text tells us that the very fact of Juan's involvement with Doña Sol is his destruction: "Woman was created for the happiness of man," it intones with disregard for women's agency and autonomy, "but instead, she destroyed the tranquility of the world." That sexism is further cemented with a line of printed dialogue in which Doña Sol seems to openly invite domestic violence so long as it means Juan will be with her. The tawdry spectacle of their affair, 'Blood and sand' suggests, weighs so heavily on the matador that a moment of reflection is distraction enough to kill him. And we're still not done, because 'Blood and sand' - through unnecessary side character Don Joselito - also expresses that the masses cheering the spectacle of brutality and death, ever hungering for sensationalism at any cost, are the real monsters.
One could reasonably argue that all these factors play into the course of events and the protagonist's demise. If that's what 'Blood and sand' wanted to do, then it was far from articulate in its dispensation of wisdom. Instead it feels much more like a game of moving the goalposts to satisfy every equivocation: "This is the true meaning! No, that is! No, this is!"
I'm not familiar with Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel, from which screenwriter June Mathis adapted her screenplay. I've seen a few other features Mathis wrote, and found they ranged from flawed but entertaining, to classic and timeless. I've not had opportunity to watch other renditions of Ibáñez's novel. I have no point of comparison to make, and can only judge this film on its own merits. I think the technical craft is swell. I think the writing is a jumbled mess.
Maybe a second watch would solidify the feature for me in ways that a single pass could not. Yet with so many other movies available of which to partake, I struggle to justify returning to this one. Great performances and strong attention to visual details are to be commended, but they can't outweigh unconvincing story development and disordered thematic construction. In my opinion this is the weakest of those Valentino flicks I've watched, and the weakest I've seen to date of silent films at large. 'Blood and sand' was received well in 1922, and is still held in high regard today. But for my part, I'm not impressed - only disappointed.