White Zombie

Being made in black and white, in the early years of sound, this picture still incorporates the best of soundless film. At times using dialogue only like the "captions" found in the days without sound- snippets of dialogue are weighted with more meaning than any rambling conversation could manage. In every part of the scenery and setting, the sense of contrast between beauty and twisted ugliness is apparent. Scenes show the island as a fruitful tropical paradise, Mssr. Beaumont's home is richly elegant, but this is always balanced by the darkness of lumbering zombies. The beauty of Madaline, the innocent gypsy queen, constantly stalked by the desperate clinging "love" of Beaumont, whilst all is towered over by Lugosi's character, the presonification of evil himself, Murder Legandre (for this is his name, although interestingly it is never mentioned in the film). A man who seems to exist for no other reason than to gain power over others though use of his dark "spells". One of the most memorable scenes is that of the sugar mill, which is accompanied by nothing more than the sound of the creaking wheel, driven by brainless, sunken-faced living corpses. This sound continues, even as we see a "man" fall into the sugar cutting blades, and as Beaumont approaches his witch doctor, all resolve fading to horror in his face.
Madaline's husband Neil is like a typical hero type, but it is sure that he loves his bride, though whether this is more or less than Beaumont I cannot guess. In one of my favourite scenes in the film, he is drowning his sorrows after the death of his wife, and sees mirages of her calling his name. He stumbles towards her, against a backdrop of the shadows of figues, unnoticed, in the corner of a bar- creating a moving and perfect picture of dejection.
Towards the end of the film, Beaumont gets his zombie slave. Madaline sits pale and lifeless at a piano, playing the same song over, and the insidious sexual tension reaches its peak- the enrequited lover has not his hearts desire, but a beautiful corpse, a fragile caged bird who will not sing. The ending, set in a high vaulted gothic castle by the sea, I seem to remember being a little bizarre, though this is barely detrimental to the film as a whole. I find the whole story fascinating, of the lengths people will go to to try to get what they cannot have, and only wish I could find better words to describe it than I have done here.