We don’t know the exact number but the Library of Congress (according to their own studies) estimates that around 75% of silent films have been lost due to lack of preservation, vault fires, or because no one bothered to save the films in the first place. This figure only encompasses silent films created before sound films took over in the 1930s and does not include films that were never finished in the first place, like the mysterious movie at the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s excellently chilling new novel, Silver Nitrate. The mass of unknown and lost films offers plenty of room for a creative, clever writer like Moreno-Garcia to work with.
Late 1992 is not the best of times for Montserrat and her longtime friend, Tristán. Montserrat is a gifted sound editor working for a tight-fisted business that is slowly cutting her hours. Tristán is a faded former telenovela breakout who now mostly does voice work (which is also pretty scarce). They both know that Los Angeles is the place to be for their industry yet they stick to Mexico City. Montserrat is a film buff, especially horror, so when Tristán tells her that he’s discovered that the mysterious 1950s director Abel Urueta lives in his new building, she’s intrigued by the chance to ask all kinds of questions. (Because this novel is set in 1992, there is no internet. For a millennial like me, it was uniquely frustrating to know that Montserrat couldn’t get jump on a computer and look things up.)
Neither Montserrat nor Tristán expected that an evening of reminiscing and whiskey would lead to a terrifying—and possibly deadly—adventure. Montserrat can’t resist asking the old director about his last, unfinished horror film, the one he tried to make before his career faded into bad luck and obscurity. Abel’s answer is startling: the film contained a magical spell that ruined the lives of everyone involved. Of course, the youths scoff at Abel’s tales of Nazi occultists and runes and clairvoyance. Who wouldn’t? But because we humans never can seem to leave well enough alone, Montserrat and Tristán let themselves be tempted by the possibility that magic is real.
Unfortunately for Montserrat and Tristán, the magic they blunder into turns their lives into a waking nightmare of ghosts, menacing shadowy figures, curses, and the likely possibility that they’re both on borrowed time. The pair have to race to undo what they’ve inadvertently done. (Note to future magic meddlers: always look for and read the fine print.) Moreno-Garcia sprinkles Mexican cinema and culture throughout her lively tale, which will probably send the nerdier ones among us to Wikipedia to find out the histories of the actors, directors, films, music, and stories mentioned in Silver Nitrate‘s pages. The use of silver nitrate film stock in the book definitely got me*. I’ve been fascinated by how filmmakers used the stuff for decades as they invented what we now know as movies, even though they knew it was highly volatile, ever since I saw Inglorious Basterds.
Silver Nitrate is among Moreno-Garcia’s best. Not only is there all this wonderful plot and history, but Montserrat and Tristán are also beautifully complex characters. They’re the kind of flawed people who, if they were our friends, we would love in spite of how much they frustrate us. Their friendship anchors this wild tale even as Moreno-Garcia pulls out all the stops on her imagination. This book is incredible.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
* Recommended reading:
- Audrey Amidon, “Film Preservation 101: Is Nitrate Film Really Dangerous?” National Archives: The Unwritten Record, December 10, 2018.
- Liz Logan, “The Unlikely Story of How Nitrate Film Endures,” Hypoallergic, December 9, 2016.