LA HABANERA

Germany, 1937, 100 minutes, Black and white.
Zarah Leander, Ferdinand Marian.
Directed by Detlef Sierck.

La Habanera was directed by Detlef Sierck who, in 1937, the year or the film's release, moved to the United States and became the noted director Douglas Sirk.

The film is interesting as a product of the German film industry in the late '30s. While it looks like a typical romance with disillusionment, the film's screenwriter Gerhard Menzel became one of the significant writers for the Third Reich. Commentators have then seen in the film some Nazi ideas: the contrast between the soft Mediterranean ethos and that of the Aryan north (particularly Sweden in the film).

Whatever the reality, the film shows Douglas Sirk as an adept presenter of glossy melodrama - with complex and ambiguous meanings below the surface. His films in the United States in the '50s have received a great deal of attention in retrospect as being mirrors, albeit critical, of the American wav of life. (European directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder have paid great homage to Sirk by imitating his style.)

At the time the film was a star vehicle for the singer-actress Zarah Leander.

1. Interesting entertainment? The German film industry of the 1930s? Comparisons with other films of the time? The American style?

2. Douglas Sirk and his career, German background, German film industry, transition to the United States? Light comedy, sentimental melodrama? A glossy surface style with political implications?

3. Zarah Leander as the star, a vehicle for her, acting, songs?

4. Gerhard Menzel and his later career as a Nazi writer? The re-creation of the period, implications of Nazi philosophy?

5. Style: black and white photography, the atmosphere of the Caribbean, the romantic aura of the Spanish colony? The taxi driver, the bullfighters? The romantic swirl of the opening? The lapse of time and the change into a greater realism? Puerto Rican industry, the epidemic, Astree and her hot-house existence? The finale? The contrasts - with Sweden, the continual verbal contrasts?

6. The title of the film, the song, the variety of performances from the taxi driver to Astree's final singing of it?

7. Astree and her Swedish background, family, her aunt? The visit to Puerto Rico and everything exaggeratedly romantic? Her attraction to things Latin? The taxi driver, the bullfights? The attraction to Don Pedro? His courting her, her infatuation, the credibility Of her jumping ship?

8. The experience of reality, her wealth, isolated existence, her devotion to her son and pampering him? Her stories of Sweden? The beginnings of the epidemic, the political cover-up? Industrial problems? Don Pedro and his hard behaviour? Becoming more devious?

9. The arrival of the doctors, the tests, the cover-ups? Don Pedro making difficulties? Dr Nagel and his friendship with Astree? The build-up to Don Pedro's death?

10. The changes in Puerto Rico itself, as reflected by Astree's understanding of them?

11. Astree's final singing, leaving, taking her son, an ambiguous future?

12. Themes of 30s German films? The perspective of Europe? Douglas Sirk moving from this kind of film-making to the United States?