Die schwarze Pantherin (1921)

Somewhere in a small village in Ukraine, great excitement reigns: young Kornej is returning home today from the city, where he studied painting at the Academy of Art. The artist is to paint new frescoes in the chapel belonging to the estate. Rita, the estate manager’s daughter, is also very excited at the return of the “prodigal son.” Kornej’s commission soon brings the two young people closer. Before long, an art agent arrives in the village, hoping to find Ukrainian folk art there. Kornej, however, is unwilling to sell any of his works. Rita persuades him to accept the agent’s offer and go to a Western metropolis, where he can achieve success with his painting—success he could never attain here, in such isolation. Kornej eventually agrees, partly because Rita hints that she will go with him. With a wagon heavily laden with local folk art, the two young people set off alongside the agent toward a more hopeful future. The art agent, too, expects to make a handsome profit by representing Kornej. In the big city, Kornej’s works are first assessed by the renowned critic Moulin. Moulin is delighted by Kornej’s folk painting and promptly bestows on him the dubious distinction of “master of primitivism.” But Kornej is also confronted with temptations he had never expected. One of these is Vera, a young woman of great elegance who is a writer and has penned an exceedingly flattering article about the young artist. Kornej, who until now had lived with Rita in a kind of self-imposed seclusion, is introduced by Vera to the bohemian “high society.” Meanwhile, Rita becomes pregnant, and the two marry. The worldly Vera comments on this with her own patronizing, scornful sarcasm: an artist who gets married is committing suicide. Then fate strikes: Kornej and Rita’s newborn baby falls ill, and their savings are soon used up. Hardship sets in. One day Moulin reappears. He had already had his eye on Rita back then. The smitten critic persuades the wife and mother to run away with him and escape their social and economic misery. But her heart still belongs to Kornej; through this move, she merely hopes to bring him to his senses. To keep Moulin at a distance, she makes a wager with him: over the course of 99 rounds of a card game, Moulin can try to win Rita. As one round follows another, Rita waits longingly for Kornej to come and take her back. But he remains strangely passive, until, seized by fierce determination, he finally begins to fight for Rita. He wins her back … and then pushes her away just as she is about to fall into her husband’s arms in victory. Kornej cannot forgive her for leaving with Moulin. Then news arrives that the child they left behind is dying. At the baby’s cradle, Rita, the “black panther,” collapses in tears. The two parents realize that life in the big city has not been good for them, and decide to return to the seclusion of rural Ukraine.