The Girl from the Marsh Croft

Helga, from a poor croft at the edge of the marsh, withdraws her paternity suit in open court: with the man about to swear a false oath, she chooses to spare him the sin. The town does not understand the decision and declares her immoral. She goes into a farmer's household as a servant. The film is not interested in honour. It is interested in who is charged for telling the truth: Helga loses in law and loses in the eyes of the town, and the film is nonetheless the only party that finds her right. The form is early Sirk melodrama: rural exteriors, feeling matched to landscape, and light falling on a face doing the work of character. The cinematographer is Willy Winterstein. Douglas Sirk directed, working in Germany at the time under the name Detlef Sierck. It is his second feature and his first melodrama; a UFA production, released on 30 October 1935, running 82 minutes. The language of his Hollywood melodramas begins here. The source is Selma Lagerlöf's short novel of 1908. Victor Sjöström filmed the same story in 1917; watching the two versions side by side shows the distance between Nordic silent cinema and thirties German studio melodrama directly. Hansi Knoteck plays Helga. Who it is for: viewers curious about Sirk's origins and Lagerlöf adaptations. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot set aside the political context. The film was made in Nazi Germany, in a studio under state control.