Mazurka (1935)

The young Lisa Petrovna and her friend Hilde attend a concert by the composer Grigory Mikhailov. During the concert, Lisa is handed a letter in which Mikhailov asks to speak with her afterward. He talks with her and then invites her to visit an entertainment venue. The chanson singer Vera Petrovna is performing there. When she spots Mikhailov in the audience, she faints. Once she comes to, she pulls out a revolver and fires twice at the artist, who is hit and collapses. The singer is then arrested, and a trial follows. Vera decides to exercise her right to remain silent. Only when a suitcase taken from a safe-deposit box is brought into the courtroom as evidence does she change her mind. She agrees to testify, but only in a closed hearing and on the condition that the suitcase remain locked. The judge agrees to this arrangement. Flashback: Vera recounts her life. She sang at the Warsaw Opera before marrying the handsome and gallant Captain Boris Kierow. Hoping to devote herself entirely to her marriage and their young child, she planned to give her farewell performance in Mazurka, an opera written by the young up-and-coming composer Grigory Mikhailov. While her husband went off to war in 1914, Vera stayed at home with their little daughter. At a gathering with former colleagues from the arts, Vera apparently drank too much; in any case, she woke up the next morning in Mikhailov’s apartment. It seems that he ruthlessly took advantage of her drunken state and raped her. Vera fled his apartment and returned home, where her husband had also just come back from the front. But Mikhailov did not give up and continued to harass Vera with his demands for sexual gratification. Hoping to ask him to leave her alone once and for all, Vera went to Grigory’s apartment one last time. On the way, however, her husband saw her, and subsequently filed for divorce. After their separation, the father was awarded custody of their daughter. Vera then returned to her profession, performing from then on only in third-rate venues and dives. Fifteen long years passed before she was able to see her daughter again. Her ex-husband, who had since died, had remarried. Lisa grew up believing that Kierow’s second wife was her mother. Vera decided not to burden her child and let her continue believing this. But then she saw her daughter in the company of the man she hated, and she shot him. Now the suitcase from the safe-deposit box has to be opened after all. Documents are taken from it, fully corroborating Vera’s testimony. The proceedings reveal that Vera wanted to spare her child her own fate: falling into the clutches of the unscrupulous seducer Mikhailov. The sentence is therefore relatively lenient: three years in prison. When a petition for clemency is also granted, Vera is effectively free. Outside the courtroom, mother and biological daughter meet, though Lisa still does not know the truth. Lisa wishes Vera good luck, then leaves the building with her foster mother.