Erotikon (1920) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Erotikon
Year: 1920
Director: Mauritz Stiller
Country: Sweden
Language: N/A

Erotikon influenced Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923), Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game 1939), and much of the later work of Ernst Lubitsch. An elegant cheeky comedy, its influence can still be felt in romantic comedies of 2016. Swedish director Mauritz Stiller's bemused look at the social institutions of marriage and monogamy humans have created hilariously suggests that the species may have a made a colossally dimwitted mistake.

Erotikon revolves around the romantic entanglements of six stock characters from drawing room comedy: Professor Leo Charpentier (the clueless husband), Irene (the restless wife), their niece Marte (the flirtatious ingenue), sculptor Preben (the Bohemian artist), aviator Baron Felix (the pretentious flyboy), and Sidonius (the absentminded professor)

 Some Swedish Studio history; a 1919 merger that resulted in Svensk Filmindustri meant that the company now distributed and exhibited films as well as produced them. The critical and financial success of Victor Sjöström’s Terje Vigen (1917) led to Studio head Charles Magnusson deciding to make fewer films, each with stronger production values and bigger budgets. He also wanted to appeal to more international markets. Erotikon, which sounds like a weird robot sex operation, was the result of that decision. It was the most expensive swedish film at that time. 

The film has quite lavish sequences, some involving over 800 extras onscreen at a time. Erotikon is quite ahead of its time in the amount of eroticism each frame exudes. Everything, from the situations the characters find themselves in to the dress is quite risque. Soaked in decadence, the picture does not come off as sleazy, it is rather tasteful when addressing the wicked.

Unfortunately a fire destroyed most of Stiller's previous work, so we may never know how this incredible director found his passion. Erotikon is, in no doubt, a memorable piece of film history that ought to be beloved by fans of silent film.