Heaven on Earth

This is a Pordenone silent film festival rediscovery showing Weimar at its most decadent. Reinhold Schunzel had acted in Different from Others the landmark film campaigning for the legalisation of homosexuality.

Geoff Brown writing in the festival programme attributes much of the film’s success to Schunzel, “...as artistic supervisor, producer, co-writer and star there is never any doubt who is in control, or who fixes our gaze. Despite the delights of Charlotte Ander, Szoke Szakal, dancing girls, a black jazz band, a trained monkey and Oscar Werndorff's nightclub sets, our eyes always seek out Schunzel.” Playing Bellman, a moralising city councillor who abhors alcohol, he is forced by his brother’s will to take a legacy of 500,000 marks on condition that he takes over the running of notorious nightclub Heaven on Earth [Der Himmel auf Erden]. Initial disdain gives way to an appearance in full drag. There is a sophisticated sense of enjoyment that speaks to a queer sensibility as in Schunzel’s later Viktor und Viktoria.

Brian Robinson