Besides the grim fatalist moral lesson, the film is lacking Expressionist ideals, and is more in tune with later Weimar cinema. The fact that it has a female lead certainly separates it from the classic Expressionist works. And shadowing and landscape techniques are much more modernized reflecting Weimar's embrace of technology and immersion into consumer culture. Even today, there are few female actors that represent such a powerful will and dominant presence as Louise Brooks did in her masterful performance. The film was not very popular at its time of production and I wonder how much that has to do with this strong female presence.

The thing which stood out for me in my experience of this movie was its exquisite lighting. If i had to name the most incredible use of lighting i've ever seen, i would name this. There are images here which are illuminated as delicately as a flickering candle, or often as evocative as a flickering candle. It is often called intoxicating and shimmering, and people get this impression of it because of its light.

A colourful cast of decadent misfits accompany showgirl and prostitute Lulu (Louise Brooks, who has an incredibly charismatic presence, was forever nicknamed Lulu after this role) in her major misadventure, her love for a married man, which is what opens pandora's box in this tale. Each character has such a wonderfully suggestive face, due to the way they are lit. And they are all introduced really well, so that they have a really distinct character, and you remember all of them. Each character has a distinctive persona, which borders on caricature. Most of the band of misfits seem like broad comedy characters, but then they turn around and surprise you with a serious moment.

Note: beware music which is not Timothy Brock's score:

Unfortunately, the art gallery who were playing it were playing it at sound speed, which is way too fast, and almost makes farce of what was dark comic-tragic action - and it had the single worst attempt at capturing the mood of a silent movie in music. Timothy Brock (The Last Laugh, Sunrise) has done a score for this one, and i expected to here that, since Brock has a real feel for silents, and writes incredible, moody scores - but instead I was presented with a cliched piece of utter garbage which patronised every subtle element of this movie. I had trouble ignoring the music - but i did constantly feel like the action onscreen was not well summarised/generalised by the happy/sad plonking of the piano accompaniment, which pulled out of its hat every cliche tune to characterise a mood you ever heard. So undoubtedly i would have enjoyed it better with better music and more appropriate speed.

One of the last great silent films this is a German movie that is surprisingly short on cinematic expressionism and long on the glamorous, sultry, hypnotic beauty of Louise Brooks. It is her dynamic performance and fallen Goddess looks that makes her, and by attachment Pandora's Box, a wonder to behold.

The thematic sexual content is handled with reverence rather than raunchiness and it is her glorious, giddy, and sincere playful naive nature that is compelling. She not only, just by proximity, seduces any man in close contact, as well as the audience with a childish charm of calming cuteness but unleashes primal desire as well as a protective desire manifested by her magnetism.

The film is long and deeply depressing but it carries us through to her inevitable descent and destruction with so much pathos that it is hard to detach oneself from her destiny and want this obviously playful, not prey-full, soul to live happily ever after. But this is not a fairy-tale and she is not Snow White. This is Greek tragedy.