Isn't Life Wonderful

Dir. D.W. Griffith

115 Minutes

USA

1924

Starring: Carol Dempster, Neil Hamilton, Erville Alderson, Helen Lowell, Marcia Harris, Frank Puglia

****/*****

D.W. Griffth’s terrific Isn't Life Wonderful, which gives tension and empathy through sequences so simple in narrative but perfectly organized in execution. Griffith’s narrative concerns a family of Polish refugees in post-World War I Germany, with the primarily focus being Polish war orphan Inga (Carol Dempster) and her attempts to care for the family in Berlin that has taken her in, as well as her romance with soldier son Paul. The bulk of the picture takes place in their small, two room apartment, a space utilized as both dense and claustrophobic (echoes of a recent watch of George Steven’s The Diary of Anne Frank came to mind) or open and cozy depending on the mood of the scene. And the narrative, while episodic by nature, does not feel repetitive nor mechanical. Each segment builds on the previously one, setting a domino effect that culminates in the two “name-drops” of the title: the first during a lavish dinner of liverwurst and potatoes, and the second following much more of a dramatic climax. But Griffith gets quite a bit of mileage out of his cast, who all perform their parts with great intention and incredible empathy, allowing for something as simple as a man erasing a chalkboard of food prices to have so much tension and yearning attached to it. But the picture also has an odd “verity” quality to it, with little intrusion by title cards to describe how these characters are feeling, thinking, and what the audience should cull from them, and often sticking to simply what they are saying (with exceptions for moments of establishing context, setting, or backstory). It is Griffith on a more intimate scale, which is where he personally excels.

January 10th, 2020