The Kennington Bioscope is a regular cinema event featuring live accompaniment to silent films that takes place at the Cinema Museum.

Le Brasier Ardent (France 1923) (digital). Directed by Ivan Mosjoukine. Assistant director Alexandre Volkoff. With Ivan Mosjoukine, Nathalie Lissenko and Nicolas Koline.

Russian-born stage and film actor Ivan Mozzhukhin left his native country following the 1917 revolution and, having initially taken refuge in Crimea, settled in Paris. He became a major star of French cinema, after adjusting the spelling of his surname to the more gallic `Mosjoukine’. He wrote most of his French films and directed two of them, L’Enfant du Carnaval (previously screened by KB in a 9.5mm abridgement) and the present example, Le Brasier Ardent. This means literally `the burning brazier’ or `the burning crucible’, but is also known in English variously as The Blazing Inferno, The Burning Cauldron and Burning Embers. Following a brief, unsuccessful time in Hollywood, he returned to Europe and appeared in German films (one of which, 1929’s Manolescu, was screened at KB in October 2023) until the rise of the Nazi party prompted a move back to France.

Le Brasier Ardent combines elements of comedy, mystery, romance and psychological drama, placed within often surreal contexts such as oversized sets designed to call into question concepts of reality. The plot – about a husband engaging a detective (Mosjoukine) to tail his much younger wife (Nathalie Lissenko, Mosjoukine’s real-life spouse at the time) – was essentially no more than a framework for these various devices, which in total have been described as constituting `a semi-comic Kafkaesque nightmare’. A surreal treasure.

Live piano accompaniment.

Silent film with intertitles which may be suitable for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Tickets & Pricing

£8. Seats are limited, so please arrive early or request an invitation using the email kenbioscope@gmail.com.