Rent Corridor of Mirrors (1948)

Dreamy Fantasy. - Corridor of Mirrors review by Steve

Arthouse fantasy about a couple of mysterious characters who seem to have become unstuck from time. Or is there's a rational explanation? It's the kind of ghostly tale of the uncanny which became popular after WWII, and owes an obvious debt to French surrealist director, Jean Cocteau.

Which is curious as this is the debut of Terence Young, who went on to make Bond films. Eric Portman is cast against type as an androgynous aesthete who meets a black haired beauty in prewar London (Edana Romney), who is the image of his renaissance painting.

While the supernatural events have a kind of opiated logic, this is foremost about about the dark atmosphere, with elaborate sets in deep shadows, dreamy symbolism, and motifs of fetishism and sexual ambiguity. George Auric's modernist score makes a big contribution to the ambience of hazy romance.

The sound is bathed in reverb for hypnotic effect, which makes the dialogue difficult to follow, despite Portman having the clearest diction in films. Romney is the lead and she looks fine as a hallucinatory apparition of a medieval aristocrat, though not a great actor. It's a curiosity which is sometimes absurd, but ultimately, haunting.