Il était une fois

It's really unfortunate that so much of this film is lost. The Danish Film Institute's restoration goes as far as possible, but there are still moments where scenes have to get played out in intertitles and use production stills to continue the story. It's unfortunate because what's there is actually quite delightful, an earnest and deeply felt fairy tale about a prince and princess falling in love with the help of a little bit of magic. Much like the earlier The Parson's Widow, the earlier and more straightforward comedy gives way to surprising depth of feeling by the end so that even if the final few minutes are recounted with bits of text, there's still a spark of warmth in my icy, cold heart.

This is the story of the Princess Illyria (Clara Wieth), a haughty and very pretty royal who refuses every prince coming along to marry her. The opening is her dealing with three princes in a row, condemning the first to the pillory and the second to the hangman (how she can do this to another sovereign's prince is never really explained, but fairy tale). The third is our other main character, the Prince of Denmark (Svend Methling). Feeling generous at the return of her parrot, she lets the prince go without execution. Dejected, the prince returns home, wanders the woods, and encounters a woodsman descended from fairies who gives him a magic copper kettle that shows him who he will marry (the princess, of course). Sporting a goatee and some forester rags, the prince and his trusty servant, Kasper Roghat, return to Illyria and conceive a scheme.

The prince, disguised, uses the promise of the kettle to convince Illyria to let him sleep in her chamber one night in exchange for letting her look at the kettle. When she sees the prince in the kettle's shiny exterior, she laughs at this vagabond, allowing him to sleep on the floor by her fireplace while her ladies in waiting observe. Kasper, though, comes to the King in the middle of the night, disguised as a knight, and convinces him that something is going on with the princess, so he goes to check. He finds his daughter with a strange man, and Kasper demands that the king exile the princess for the insult to the Prince of Denmark's honor or else face war. That is how the princess and the prince (disguised as a woodsman) go to Denmark's countryside to become potters.

Almost everything up to Kasper showing up in the King's presence is whole, but almost the entire scene of the prince meeting the princess in her chamber, showing her the kettle, and the princess being exiled is all done in intertitles because of the lost footage. I've gone on small rants here and there about how intertitles kill silent films (like in Love One Another), but I find it hard to hold against Once Upon a Time here because it wasn't a conscious choice but just a sad trick of fate that certain sections of reels have deteriorated or been lost.

What follows ends up being fairly predictable, but Illyria's change from haughty princess to loving wife is very convincingly drawn. In their hovel, she tries to show authority, but the prince has none of it. He essentially laughs her off and lets the reality of living in poverty get to her. She's given a new sense of life when she discovers that she has a talent for pottery, and they work together to make their first batch for sale. She breaks them all, though, after they separate on their way to town when he stops to help someone, and the local foresters chase her, tossing her wheelbarrow over. This time is where she becomes humbled, especially the moment they find the corpse of a poacher hanging from a tree, a direct callback to her earlier calls to have her suitors hanged for merely boring her. The sight of real death horrifies her. The travails of real life make her appreciate that life is more than just a parade of niceties. She looks to the man whom she lives with and begins to fall in love. It's a bit Stockholm Syndrom-y, but it works.

The acting here needs to be noted. Up to this point in Dreyer's career, the performances of his actors have varied wildly in type and quality. If the actors knew what they were doing on their own, they tended to deliver the kinds of quiet, grounded performances his films called for. If they didn't, then they were prone to the wild extremes of silent acting with a lot of flailing limbs. I think it's about here, in Once Upon a Time, where Dreyer began to really assert himself in terms of directing his actors in very particular ways. There's a moment when the princess falls against a door, and we get a close up of her. After a second we can see the small exhale of breath that demonstrates her sudden feeling of calm because of her sweet forester's aid in a matter. It's a tiny moment, but it sells the moment so much more than something larger would have done. We can't forget Clara Wieth in this, of course. She sells the emotion with such simple austerity so that it works.

The final turns of the plot are when the prince feigns sickness and sends the princess to the castle to beg for food. Given a job in the kitchen in exchange for the food, she is met with the announcement that the prince has returned and needs someone who fits his foreign princess's dress to take part in the mock wedding since his foreign princess cannot come. She, of course, is the only one who fits, and she ends up proving her love to the haughty prince she doesn't realize, freshly shaven and well-dressed, is the man she's fallen in love with. In terms of the surviving materials, the vast majority of the ending is lost, told through intertitles and the occasional production photo. And yet, even as I knew that I wasn't going to see another frame of footage, I enjoyed the descriptions of Illyria's defense of her poor potter in the woods and the prince's final reveal of his true identity.

No, it's not challenging stuff. It's a straightforward telling of a fairy tale, essentially, and I found it kind of wonderful by the end. Illyria's journey from haughty princess to loving wife feels real and earned. This is a gem of Dreyer's career, even if about 25% seems to be lost.

It is said that Dreyer himself thought that the movie was a failure, because he relied too much on atmosphere, rather than personalities (all his great movies are character dramas). It is true that there is little psychological insight in this charming little fairytale. But whosoever enquired about the dimensionality of the pied piper of Hamelin? Some may say that Der van Engang is wanting of gravitas, I on the other hand delight in its frivolity.

The film is a succession of painterly images. The DVD is the only one I have ever bothered to take screen-captures from. The costume design is exquisite, much less gaudy than in modern period dramas. My favourite reel is of the princess and her ladies in their chamber listening to the waterborne minstrel of the prince of Denmark. Their longing is palpable, their desire clear for all to see. I can't tell you how fond I am of playing this part frame by frame. The rapt princess on her divan, a swooning lady by the window and the most adventurous daring to set eyes on the lute player and the minstrel. The yearning for adventure, romance and foreign lands, denied these beauties in their dovecote, is quite powerful.

This is a fairytale for adults. There is much escapism to be had: some of the slapstick antics of the hero's squire, Kasper Røghat, are truly amusing (including a couple of laugh-out-loud moments). However it is the atmosphere of impeccable sensuality that pleases me the most.

It is true that the taming-of-the-shrew theme of the plot gradually becomes a bit tedious. It is also a problem that the movie peters out, mostly this is because of the fragmentation towards the end due to missing reels. However Der van Engang is still very much required viewing. Not necessarily a film to recommend to fans of other Dreyer movies, it stands very much alone. Because of its sheer unadulterated innocence, if for no other reason, I suggest you watch this movie.

The DVD of this movie is available from the Danish Film Institute.

If you've seen this movie and liked it I recommend Sir Arne's Treasure by Mauritz Stiller which has recently got a DVD release.

According to the Danish Film Institute, which is responsible for the restoration of this film, approximately only half of the original film remains. At 75 minutes, this restoration includes stills and explanatory title cards to compensate for much of the lost footage. As it is, "Once Upon a Time" isn't very good. Yet, one can see significant improvements in Carl Theodor Dreyer's film-making here, and he would make his first great film, in my opinion, next with "Michael".

The film clearly resembles Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", with the story being about a Danish prince who, much through stratagem, tames a rebellious princess into loving, marrying and obeying him. The original film was probably more succinct and explanatory, but the plotting is occasionally perplexing as is. The cinematography is quite good at times, including some chiaroscuro effects. Some of the acting, or rather direction of the actors, is awkward at times, though. There's some comic relief, too, although not like in Dreyer's more entertaining early film, "The Parson's Widow" (Prästänkan) (1920). "Once Upon a Time" isn't a terrible waste of time, and it can be entertaining, but I recommend skipping it for the director's more acclaimed and available works.

Sometimes-though not often-you find an aristocrat who behaves improperly and in a bizarre way not in keeping their privileged condition. It would seem that strange conduct among aristocrats is not uncommon in Denmark as some English playwright wrote some centuries back. Such odd behaviour can also be found in the film "Der Var Engang" (Once Upon A Time) directed by Herr Carl Theodor Dreyer in the silent year of 1922.

The film depicts the case of the Prince of Denmark who travels to the land of Illyria where lives a princess who knows pretty well her exalted role and acts accordingly, a capricious and spoiled royal who rejects one by one all her suitors and certainly the Prince of Denmark wouldn't be an exception for her.

Annoyed by this and smitten with the royal brat, the Prince of Denmark decides to teach her a lesson with the help of his assistant, called "Smokehat". The Prince will disguise himself as a commoner in his plan to win the princess' heart.

"Der Var Engang" was an adaptation of a play by Herr Holger Drachmann that was very popular in Denmark and the film captures the fairytale atmosphere, especially during the first half of the picture in which there is much subtle humour that makes good use of Danish folklore and is supported by astonishing art direction and beautiful bucolic scenery.

In the second half of the film things take a new turn with the luxurious fairytale setting and the easy life at the palace disappearing as the Princess learns of real life and must endure the perils and hardships of commoners. Far from the safety of the palace, she learns humility, forgets her pride and finally falls in love.

Although almost half of the film is lost, the surviving footage is well supported by still photos to make up a complete narrative, a great restoration by the Danish Film Institute giving the opportunity to silent film fans around the world to see a very different type of Herr Dreyer work in which a fairy tale is combined with a serious moral, the latter being more characteristic of the Dreyer films that were to come.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must continue to behave as a true Teutonic aristocrat.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com