Telling a story by the point of view of one character can be a big challenge for a filmmaker. It's not only about pointing the camera to that one protagonist and telling his story: it's necessary to make the viewer experience his transformation while the story goes on. Making the audience feel the same emotions of a character, as well as the change of his personality at the same time the character experiences it can be a deciding point in the process of creating interest for the picture.
And few movies have done it so well as Mata Hari (1931) the World War I movie about the misterious spy, immortalized by the performance Greta Garbo. Garbo plays the character at first as a sexy and cold spy who drives men mad while working for the German resistance. But she suffers such a change throughout the movie, that turns that cliche femme fatale into a incredibly believable flesh and bone person.
Mata Hari is a double agent who lives in France under the disguise of an exotic dancer. She gets a knew assignment when young Russian pilot Alexis Rossanoff (Ramon Novarro) arrives in the country with your typical MacGuffin letter, in this case a document that can decide the war. Hari's mission is to seduce the pilot and steal the document, and it seens to be easier than she tought, when Rossanoff reveals a strong obsession for her, who he saw dancing many times. Hari proceeds in her mission, but couldn't predict that she would also fall in love with him.
Putting aside the whole spy plot, the movie is an amazing character study, because of the romance between Hari and Rossanoff. What puts it above many movies made at the time is the way that the audience feels the many emotions that Garbo's character feels towards the pilot.
The one scene that defines it all is when Hari goes to Rossanoff's place, to seduce and steal him. Till that point, Novarro's character was a complete pain in the neck, having no other characteristics but being in love. He was that annoying, submissive, needy, boring guy who spent all his time making cheesy love declarations.
But them, when they get to his place, Rossanoff shows Hari an small oratory for the Madonna that his mother gave him, telling him to always keep a candle burning before it. Than Hari asks him to put the fire out, so they can make love. The adoration that he has for the dancer suddenly finds a limit: she had crossed a line there. At first he can't accept that, but she insists so much that he, bitterly, blows out the candle.
Next day, Mata wakes up before him, leaves a note, steals the MacGuffin letter and prepares to leave. But, before she crosses the door, she sees the oratory, picks up a match and lights the candle for him.
In that couple of scenes, in a extremely subtle way, the audience feels the changing of the way Hari sees Rossanoff. Because what makes a character sympathetic is not his great ideals or conquests, but those little things that make them human. This way, Rossanoff, from a two-dimensional submissive male groupie, turns into a very likeable character. He is not just that Mata Hari fanatic, he has a lot of important things in his life. And the way she lights up the candle shows how much she started to care for him after discovering that.
We feel that change of emotion along with her, and suddenly the whole audience starts to care about Rossanoff. Making the viewer like a character can be easy. Making the same viewer hate a character can be even easier. But manipulate the audience to make they change their point of view about that character is something much harder. The way that the filmmakers have made the audience "fall in love" with that guy everyone hated and, what's more, at the exact same time that Garbo falls in love with him, is what makes such a simple gesture so powerful in this precious gem of a movie.
Matt Ferraz
FMO's on
