Destiny

Year of Release:  1921
Director:  Fritz Lang
Screenplay:  Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou
Starring:  Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
Genre:  Fantasy, romance
Running Time:  99 minutes

In this silent German film, a young couple (Dagover and Janssen) on a journey encounter the personification of Death (Goetzke), who takes the life of the man.  Heartbroken, the woman finds her way into Death's realm to plead for the life of her beloved.  Touched by her plight, Death presents her with three tales of love and death:  One set in an ancient Middle Eastern city, the other in Renaissance-era Venice and the third in ancient China.  If the woman can change the tragic outcome of just one of the episodes, Death will release her lover. 

This is an early and unjustly neglected film from acclaimed director Fritz Lang.  The film's original German title translates as The Weary Death:  A German Folk Song in Six Verses, and it is like a folk story, with a dream-like, expressionist look and, for the time, innovative special effects.  The three love stories all have a distinctive flavour to them, they all have a unique look beyond the lavish costumes and production design.  Looked at today, the fact that the characters are all played by white people in heavy make-up is problematic, albeit standard for the time.  The story was inspired by Indian mythology.  The film depicts Death as a gaunt, pale man in a wide-brimmed hat, a strangely sympathetic character who is tired of his endless task, and being cursed and despised by the living (Lang claimed that his concept of Death came from a fever-dream he had as a child).  None of the other characters are as memorable are as well-imagined as Death.  Even today, the film is visually striking and endlessly imaginative, although not without it's problems.  There is humour in the movie, but it takes itself seriously and invites it's audience to take it seriously and some level to believe in it's dark magic. 

Bernhard Goetzke as Death in Destiny 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Year: 1919
Director: Robert Wiene
Screenplay: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski
Running Time: 71 minutes
Genre Horror, psychological, silent

Summary: A small town in Germany is holding a fair. One of the attractions is the "somnambulist" Cesare (Veidt) who apparently permanently sleeps inside a coffin-like cabinet and awakes only occasionally to do the bidding of his owner and master, the mysterious hypnotist and mystic, Doctor Caligari (Krauss). A series of bizarre murders starts around the same time that Caligari arrives. When Franzis (Feher) and his friend Alan (von Twardowski) visit Caligari's sideshow, Cesare predicts that Alan will be dead by daybreak and, sure enough, that night he falls victim to the mysterious killer. Naturally enough Franzis suspects Caligari and Cesare, however the truth is more complex then it seems.

Opinions: This film is one of the first horror films ever made and is arguably among the most influential being one of, if not the first, examples of a "frame story" and also a twist ending in cinema. Most films, even science-fiction and fantasy films, pay at least some kind of lip-service to some kind of reality. This film doesn't even bother. It belongs to the "German Expressionist" movement which was sweeping German art, theatre as well as cinema in the inter-war years. The film uses bizarre, skewed, flat, painted sets, strange camera angles, and weirdly designed intertitles. Part of the reason for the expressionistic style was the fact that the producers didn't have much money for sets and lighting.
The effect is a genuinely dreamlike experience. Almost every image in the film has some element that is slightly "off", whether in the bizarre angles or designs of the sets, or the exaggerated makeup and costumes of the characters.
It is a must-see for anyone seriously interested in horror films or in film history in general, however some viewers might be put off by the fact that it is a silent film, it moves slowly, the very obvious fakeness and staginess of the production and also the exagerrated and often histrionic acting that was a hallmark of silent films. however, if you can get past this, it is still a powerful and striking experience.
Another word of warning is that the film is in the public domain and therfore exists in a number of different versions and cuts, so as always "buyer beware". I saw it in the cinema with live music, and that is by far the best way to see it and if you ever do get the opportunity to see the film "live" as it were, don't miss it. If not, it is still well worth your time checking it out, but be careful that you get the best version.



Conrad Veidt flees with Lil Dagovar in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari