The Terrors of Capital Screen adaptation of the novel by the Latvian writer Pavils Rositis “Mr. Zeplis” (1928). The novel was almost immediately translated into Russian under the title “Delets” (1932) and came to the court of Soviet power, since it was correctly ideologically loaded and revealed all the vices of the old world: adultery, marriages of convenience, drunkenness and debauchery of the so-called high society. Simultaneously, the cruel world of business is arranged in almost the same way: financial scams and fraud, speculation and theft. The depiction of the horrors of the world of capital in the film was successful.
In this endless series of negative characters, the film is somewhat reminiscent of classic noir, where there is no positive hero.
Liked it:
- beautiful actresses of Latvian cinema - Helga Danzberga, Regina Razuma, Liepin League - each in its place;
The depiction of the vices of bourgeois society for the Soviet cinema of the 70s is shown somewhere even with love, which can cause a completely non-Soviet desire to take part in them.
- a symbolic ending, where the unsinkable Zeplis, having come out dry from the water, already conceives a new scam.
What the films of the Riga film studio have always succeeded in is the “abroad”, the world of capital, which is corrupting the decadent atmosphere of bourgeois Latvia in the 20s.
Disadvantages:
The director did not like it, although, no doubt, Roland Kalnins is an interesting director, an experimenter.
"Ceplis" appears to be combined from separate episodes. There is a sense of blurring of the plot. It is often not clear why one scene is replaced by another, there is no clear sequence. A large number of secondary characters create tinkering and plot confusion.
You can watch the usual film adaptation.
7 out of 10