TIH-MINH 1919, Disc 1: 379m 16s, Disc 2: 365m 34s
Gaumont - French import
Never before released on home video, Louis Feuillade's twelve-chaptered crime serial - the first successor to his celebrated and seminal crime fantasies FANTÔMAS (1913-14) and JUDEX (1916-17) - has finally arrived for public consumption in a brilliant 4K restoration, all but a handful of shots taken from the original 35mm nitrate negative. As far as I could notice, Disc 1 (Episodes 1-6) included only one sub-standard shot, whose presence is enough to prove the meticulousness of this undertaking; Disc 2 (Episodes 7-12, plus two supplements) includes several more, but they are all eminently forgivable.
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| René Cresté as Jacques d'Athys. |
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| York PA Dispatch, 28 March 1921. |
Originally released as weekly two-reel chapters, the same format in which it reached North American theaters in 1921 under the title IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE HINDU, this is a film I've longed to see for decades and it doesn't disappoint. The plot of this "ciné-roman" (novel for the cinema), in short: Explorer Jacques d'Athys (René Cresté, JUDEX) returns to his palatial home in Nice after several years away in Indochina, bringing with him the porcelain beauty Tih-Minh (Mary Harald), a young Eurasian woman whom he credits with saving his life and introduces as his fiancée. Their homecoming coincides with that of the neighboring wealthy Marquese Dolorès de Santa Fe (Georgette Faraboni), whose personal staff includes her personal physician Dr. Gilson (Gaston Michel) and her "Asiatic" occult adviser, Kistna (Louis Leubas). In fact, Kistna and Gilson are but outward disguises; the secret masters of the villa next door, with Dolorès acting under their evil influence. Kistna has learned that Jacques has returned home with many books, among them a particular book inscribed with a message in an obscure Eastern dialect that will supposedly direct its holder to unspeakable wealth and the power to overthrow governments; Kistna naturally seeks to obtain it at any cost. Co-written by Feuillade and Georges Le Faure, the scenario embraces theft, the occult, hypnotism, kidnapping (our heroes stumble across a veritable dungeon of abducted women in various states of undress), wrongful committings to the madhouse, car chases, and all sorts of assorted cliffhangers filmed in and around the Côte d'Azur. Halfway through the story, we learn that the half-present Tih-Minh's involvement in the story extends outside the present tense, in a Leone-esque backstory revelation.
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| Mary Harald as Tih-Minh. |
Unlike its two renowned predecessors, TIH-MINH is ultimately more invigorated by its supporting characters than its principal characters, most particularly by French silent comedian Georges Biscot as the d'Athys manservant Placido. He's guaranteed to win your heart from his introductory close-up:
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| Guess who? |
This is not to say that René Cresté is an ineffective hero; his sense of pantomime is superb and sells many a scene where he is solely in control of conveying an emotion or plot point; it's just that he surrounds himself with more capable friends, like the dashing two-fisted Englishman Sir Francis Gray (Édouard Mathé) and the hypnotist Dr. Clauzel (Marcel Marquet). Likewise, the titular heroine spends a large portion of the film in an abstracted, hypnotized state, making her more of a passive presence like the heroines of THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, THE WRONG MAN, or VERTIGO.
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Kistna instructs the Marquese Dolorès.
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| Kistna and Dr. Gilman put their abductee under their hypnotic spell. |
While less fantastic and surreal than either FANTÔMAS or JUDEX, TIH-MINH is a seminal example of spy or espionage cinema, predating Fritz Lang's SPIES (Spione, 1928) by nearly a decade, while clearly following the lead of the fourth Fantômas novel by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, L'AGENT SECRET (1911, translated into English as A NEST OF SPIES). Though primarily a melodrama with lots of disguises, audacious crimes and retorts, this is undoubtedly the creation of an infinitely more skilled hand than presided over the previous two serials, where Feuillade was still inventing the ropes of serial filmmaking. Part of the reason for this is that the arts of cinematography and editing had advanced greatly in the few years separating this epic from the previous two (both jobs were handled here by the gifted Léon Clausse); however, here it's not so much the individual shots or ideas that keep us on the hook, but rather the absolute mastery of the entire through-line's execution and pacing, so impeccably distributed among the various characters and subplots, the interiors and exteriors.
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| Jacques vows to somehow rescue his beloved from her state of living death. |
There is also an unexpected and touching emphasis of humanity in the storytelling, as the upper hand in this duel between Good and Evil is exchanged numerous times before we reach the end, and the avatars of Good never once reduce themselves to Evil measures to overcome their opponents. Even in their occasional moments of victory, they send Evil scampering away in good grace and jolly good humor, leaving the evil ones to reserve their worst for themselves. As an undercurrent to the entire piece there is a strong romantic current that ultimately leads to the happiest of endings for characters we've come to love. Until I can see BARABBAS (1920), TIH-MINH gets my vote as Feuillade's masterpiece.
Too often the music assigned to silent film releases can be alienating, but gladly this is not the case with Julien Boury's absorbing soundtrack. It sometimes borrows some familiar phrasings from Bernard Herrmann's scores, notably the more sighing passages from PSYCHO, but it is can also be quite lyrical and impressively grave. I should probably also point out that Gaumont has chosen not to color-tint the images to signify day and night, which I personally found to be a boon to my engagement with the picture; I enjoyed imagining that certain scenes were set at night, as it drew me more deeply into the story. The two extras are modest but fascinating, the first a 16m 20s index of the actors in the film that shows them as they appeared in other noted films and roles. The other is also a 2m restoration comparison. The set is region free. While the main feature offers excellent English subtitles for the French intertitles, the narration of the actors' index is not similarly equipped.
Gaumont has also recently issued Feuillade's JUDEX (which features several of the same actors here, as well as the immortal Musidora) for the first time on Blu-ray, which can be found here. It is also untinted, unlike the domestic Flicker Alley DVD release of 2004.
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