The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Despite not quite knowing what was going on, I was somewhat intregued by this film.






I will be truthful and say that, as much as I tried, I found it quite hard to understand this film and what on earth it was that was actually happening, although I feel that it's eccentricity and obscureness only added to the films beauty. To me, it was less about the storyline and more about it's gothic style. I liked it for the same reasons I like reading Vogue, not for any sense of story, but to experience some kind of beyond beautiful or facinating picture. To sum it up in one word: creeptastic. If that is even a real word.

The whole film is a story told by a mad man about a monster which rises from eternal sleep and kills people. There is more to it than that, but as I said I found it quite hard to understand. Although, I was taken aback by it's design, and the ability to create the twisted, imaginary world of a mad man when the film was created in 1919.

The painted shadows on the buildings created many dark corners and spooky surroundings. Even the font used to tell the story was twisted and scribbles.. and hard to read! The soundtrack, which I am guessing is the origional, tied into the carnaval setting, further adding to the films ongoing insanity.

The actors facial expressions often looked sad and pained. This is something which would be rare to see in a modern film, unless it were a comedy. The different characters reminded me of lots of different people: Jhonny Depp as Edward scissorhands, Noel Fielding in elements of the mighty boosh and the IT crowd and even people like Jack White. I was unaware that the gothic influence of this film and others around the same time could influence people whose style I appreciate today.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is a film that, dispite being both silent and made around the same time, is worlds away from films by both Chaplin and Keaton. It's interesting to see that there were many different genres of film that came under the silent category. I have found it really interesting to have the chance to enjoy both comedy and horror/German expressionist.

Plus, the only experience I had of this genre was this.

hehe =]