Fortune-Telling By Playing Cards in Musidora's 1922 Silent Film Classic "Sol y sombra"

While it is nearly impossible to find the silent film classic Sol y sombra in its entirety there are fragmented versions floating around on the internet including a mostly un-subtitled version on YouTube. Which is where I grabbed this screenshot from.

I'm not a particular fan of silent movies but happened to come across the 1916 serial Les Vampires a week or so back and am taken by the lead actress in that film, Musidora, who also directed and starred in Sol y sombra.

Without giving out any plot spoilers the movie begins with Juana, the peasant love interest of the movie's bullfighter star, getting her fortune read. The Gypsy fortune-teller only flips over the fourth card, the Nine of Spades, after Juana has walked away with her lover. Once revealed, the Gypsy taps the Nine of Spades as if to emphasize its importance in Juana's future.

A quick cartomancy reading tells us that the Ace of Spades is a card of incredible power and strength. Uncontrolled, it can destroy the Querent. That it is the first card suggests that this element of force dominates the Querent's life. Which it definitely does in this short film. Where temperance is suggested in both open-mindedness and ambition in pursuits, Juana openly struggles with these notions.

The second card, Ten of Diamonds, in Gypsy lore represents wealth that does not bring happiness. It also advises change, not so much of place, but of attitudes as the Querent's dreams can no longer be achieved.

The third card appears to be the Jack of Diamonds, and since a Gypsy woman served as the Reader in the film it seems advisable to go with the lore of her race. This Jack represents the Hanging Man or a person who is upside down in their thinking. Coinciding with traditional symbolism this is a person torn with inner conflict and temporary indecisiveness who is given to outwardly thoughtless actions, some of which may seem foolhardy or even cruel. Which all fit our Querent, though I will say that she has plenty of reasons to feel as such, having been forced into self-conflict by a roving lover.

The clinching card which the Gypsy woman emphasized, the Nine of Spades, represents a catastrophe. It is a card of fear which can be overcome if one has prepared their self for such a calamity. In the older Querent, which Musidora and her character(s) were in their early 30s, it could augur a break up of the family and a radical change in one's accustomed life. All are applicable here. Of course, I did somewhat pick and choose what fit but that aspect is likely why so many fortune-tellers are seemingly so accurate because each reading is so open-ended in its interpretation. Since this is mostly a fictional story (Musidora was going through a similar romantic crisis in her life at the time.) the methodology bends to the plot line.