The basic premise is that of a man relating a story that happened to him and his friends - their unnerving discovery of a crazed mountebank, Dr. Caligari, and his prophetic sleepwalker. It follows a series of murders and growing madness, keeping you in constant suspense and confusion until the very last scene.
before long, the movie has you in its grip. You spend time staring at the architecture.In the film, they make you uneasy. The whole atmosphere is of a world gone wrong.The buildings loom in on you; windows sweep upward, slanted or curved; doors are obscenely angled holes beckoning you to enter and be trapped inside.
Throughout, the story defies expectations. Small plot twists confuse and mislead you until the final surprise, completely tearing down everything you thought the movie was about. Strange shadows and shots from inside alleys paint the film's world as something terrible, never allowing you a normal look at the village, never allowing you to enjoy the quaintness of it.Subtle and ingenious, we see the world the way an insane person might see it; warped and confused, a nightmarish terrain where nothing makes sense and balance is not to be found.Through it all, the grinning, hunched figure of Dr. Caligari hangs in your mind, pushing out rational thought.
The movie is well worth your time; there's a certain pleasure in trying to capture the feeling of terror an early audience, unaccustomed to the visual effects we see every day, would have had the first time they saw this movie. It's an intellectual terror in the grand old style, giving you the same thrill you get from reading Frankenstein.
It is a shocking, disturbing masterpiece. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I can see influence from this film in the set designs of Tim Burton especially, and the narrative twist at the end must have influenced David Lynch in "Mulholland Drive."I would say this is an essential film, and unlike many "groundbreaking" classics, it's like nothing else you've seen.
4.5/5
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