Silent movies - The Blue Bird

I had heard of the Blue Bird of Happiness before, seen it inspire jewelry, art, even found a song, but I couldn't remember ever hearing an origin story, also it didn't seem to me that it was known in Germany that much. Where did the Blue Bird of Happiness come from? Actually, it seems that the symbol is found in many different cultures.
Anyhow, I have "The Blue Bird" from 1918 for you today. Buckle up, this is going to be a wild ride.

Let's start with the plot as usual (spoileeers!).

Once upon a time, there was a peasant family - Daddy Tyl, Mummy Tyl, their son Tyltyl and their daughter Mytyl.
Across the road was the house of the rich children and nearby the hut of the poor neighbor Berlingot and her little daughter.
Berlingot has told her daughter about the bird of happiness and the sick girl thinks that maybe she could be happy as well if she has Mytyl's bird. Mytyl, however, refuses to give up her bird - which, to be honest, I don't think is that unusual for a kid.

Disappointed!

At night, the two children watch the party going on in the rich children's house thinking how nice it would be to eat just for fun instead of hunger when Berlingot comes in asking if they have "the Bird that is Blue". But is it Berlingot? No, it's actually the Fairy Bérylune who tells them they must set out to search for the Blue Bird of Happiness. She gives Tyltyl a velvet cap. Turning the diamond on it will show the children the inside of Things.

I'm a fairy and I like to creep out kids in the middle of
the night to make them go on a magical mission with me.

Tyltyl turns the diamond and the Things show their true souls - Bread, Milk, Water, Fire, Light, Sugar, the family cat and dog, all of them will accompany the children.

Lift off!

It's a dangerous mission, and when the cat asks, Bérylune tells him that death awaits all of those who go with the children. Great. So much for motivation. I'm not surprised the cat isn't happy.

Yeah, well, you are all going to die. Deal with it.

First, they make a stop at Bérylune's palace - which she has inherited from the late Mr. Bluebeard (if she's a relative of his, that might explain certain death at the end of the journey).
The cat takes the opportunity to try and convince the other "Things" that it is in their own interest to prevent finding the bird even if it endangers the lives of the children. The dog threatens to choke him first and then tell on him.
I'm seriously tired of cats so often being made the villain or being called aloof, deceitful, selfish or whatever. Just saying. It didn't help the film in my eyes because I also hated his makeup which made him look really mean.
Okay, back to the plot.

The group visits several palaces to look for the blue bird ...
- the Palace of Night (very cool place, they have ghosts)
- the Graveyard of the Happy Dead (where they meet not just their dead grandparents, but also their dead siblings, seven of them!)
- the Palace of Happiness (with the Luxuries, such as Sleeping-More-Than-Necessary, but also the Joys almost of all who are weirdly represented by young ladies in ethereal but rather skimpy outfits (see below), except the Joy of Maternal Love)
- in the Kingdom of the Future where we find the children waiting their turn to be born (including a future Tyl child, I wish they had told us his name) and we see their mothers waiting for them,
 

but they don't find the right bird anywhere.

The Chief Happiness shows the children the
Happiness of Pure Air, the Happiness of Springtime,
the Joys of Pure Thoughts, the Joy of Forest Glade and Dell,
the Happiness of Watching the Stars Rise, and the Joy of Loving.

So they say farewell to the "Things", whose souls will be invisible to them once more, while the dog beats up the cat because of course, and they return back home only to find that their bird looks much bluer than before. The blue bird has been in their own home all that time!
Oh, and in case you wonder, Bérylune is such a prankster! No one died, well, unless you want to count most of them going back to an inanimate state.
Of course they give the Widow Berlingot the bird for her daughter, and it makes them "so happy, so happy"! The widow comes back with her daughter who is also so happy ... until the bird escapes to a high tree.
Tyltyl comforts her by saying it was enough to have found the bird and keep him in their hearts before he breaks the fourth wall telling the audience to look for the bird "first in your own homes, WHERE HE IS MOST APT TO BE FOUND ! ".
Uhm, I really don't react well to people yelling at me, but okay.

You may have been able to tell that the movie wasn't completely my cup of tea.
I don't regret watching it. There are beautiful pictures in the movie which made it worth it. Some of them were atmospheric, dreamlike, and made me think of the Victorian fairy craze (probably because of the sheer number of prancing women) or of expressionist dancing. As you can see, there's lovely tinting as well which really adds to that romantic feeling.
I also enjoyed the tricks that reminded of Méliès, the dancing fire, the water running out of the tap or the milk off the table and turning into humans.
And you probably know by now that I am attracted by the bizarre.

What I'm not a big fan of, however, is morals being thrown at me without a shred of subtlety.
Not that there is anything wrong about the message as such, mind you. Pure air, springtime, and frolicking in the forest sounds just fine, but basically we are told to be happy with what we have, no matter how little it is. And the Tyls and Berlingot really have very little while the rich kids on the other side of the street stuff their faces, and that didn't sit well with me. And the cat of course. That really annoyed me.
But of course it's all very symbolic and an allegory. Which is kind of lost on me. Sorry.

The movie is based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian playwright and poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911.
I didn't read the play and I hadn't seen any of the other adaptations (it seems the 1940 version with Shirley Temple was quite popular?) and don't intend to. Actually, I first heard "The Blue Bird" mentioned in Noel Streatfeild's "Ballet Shoes" I read a while ago, that's how I found the movie.

Would I recommend watching it? Let's say it is an experience, but if I do, it's just for the pictures and atmosphere and not for the story. Oh, and I did love the music of the version I watched.

Selected sources and further reading:

1. Richard Hildreth: The Blue Bird. Essay on: San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2004
2. Lea Stans: Obscure Films: "The Blue Bird" (1918). On: Silent-ology, September 9, 2017
3. Fritzi Kramer: The Blue Bird (1918) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, February 21, 2016


One last serious question - can someone explain the design of this hat to me? Is there a reason for it to look like this? Is it a hint at an oversized Phrygian cap, do you think?