“Robert Wiene centred his film around the subjectivity of Sanzia-Florinda. He achieved this by introducing a framework plot which enabled the greater part of the story to be told as a flashback, i.e., from her point of view. What is more, the kind and the number of close-ups point constantly to Sanzia-Florinda’s inner world. Henri de Tessignies, who is deliberately not part of the story, assumes a narrative function, as mediator between the tragic heroine and the audience. He is present everywhere, but only as an occasion for the story to be told. He himself does not influence the plot. The subjectivity of Sanzia-Florinda’s story is not affected by Henri”. (Uli Jung, Walter Schatzberg, Robert Wiene, der Caligari-Regisseur, 1995)
“Vera Karalli (Wera Aleksejewna Karally. 1888-1972). More famous as a dancer than an actress – she was a pupil of Gorskjl in Moscow’s Imperial Ballet School and since 1906 with the Bolshoi – Vera Karalli, who claimed Greek ancestry, had a very successful career non only in Russia: Diaghilew brought her to Paris as a protagonist for Le pavillon d’Armide by Fokin, the highly successful performance of the Ballets Russes.
In 1915 she became Bolshoi’s prima ballerina, but for some times she had already been lured by cinema. With a slender and slim figure, gifted with an innate grace, Karalli appeared in the first versions of War and Peace and The Living Corpse; with very young Mozzuchin she acted in Chrysanthemums, directed by Piotr Cardinin as the two films mentioned previously. Chrysanthemums was considered a serious and coherent work and performing as Nevolina whose life ended with suicide, Karalli was highly praised. The same tragic end awaited her in The Shadows of Sin based on Aleksandr Amfiteatrov’s novel, with the heroine freezing to death.
In almost all her films, Vera Karalli displayed her dancing talent. In The Love of a State Councillor she performs a wild polka. In the last film made in Russia, The Swan’s Death, the only film of her Russian production accessable at the moment, the actress played Gisèle, a young girl who cannot speak and who, after being jilted in love, takes up dancing and soon becomes famous. A painter watches her performance and asks her to be his model; while she mimes the swan’s death, the painter strangles her in order the make the scene more realistic.
The Swan’s Death was released in Russia, at the onset of revolution. Accused of contacts with Rasputin and fearing for her life, Karalli left Russia in a hurry. While many other artists went into exile via Odessa and Turkey, Karalli reached Helsinki after an eventful journey, and from there, via the Baltic countries and Prussia, she went on to Berlin, where Robert Wiene offered her the main part in a film based on a novel by Barbey d’Aurevilly, Die Rache einer Frau. Acting for the first time in a foreign film, but with many Russian actors, such as Franz Egenieff and Boris Michailov on the set, and in a non dancing, but highly dramatic role, Vera Karalli showed great professionalism. The film, recently rediscovered in Moscow, shows us a charming and glamorous actress.
Vera Karalli’s story ends here: she played in another film in France, The Night of September 11th, with Severin-Mars and after few appearances in the Russian Ballets, she retired to private life”. (Vittorio Martinelli)