The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

How does one being to review a silent, German expressionist horror movie from a century ago? It's not like Psycho or 2001, which are close enough to today's movies that reasonable (if not always 1/1) comparisons can be made. Silent movies exist in a class by themselves. So much about the presentation and delivery of a silent movie is different from a talkie, you have to throw all the rules and comparisons out the window and look at it in a whole new way. The movie tells the story of Francis, a young man relaying his bizarre and troubling experiences with Dr. Caligari, a carnival sideshow presenter whose act consists of "The Somnambulist", a man who has slept his entire life, and can predict the future. Francis' friend asks how long he'll live, and is horrified to get back an answer of "until dawn". Francis' friend is found murdered the next day, and the rest of the movie is Francis working with the police to determine who killed his friend (and two others), a mystery that seems to lead back to Caligari. To tell this story, obviously they use title cards for some of the dialogue. But much of it is relayed through music cues, facial expressions and gestures. If we looked at it by today's standards, the acting is histrionic and overly demonstrative, but for the time, this was what was necessary to get the point across. It's effective, way more than I expected (this being my first silent movie). The actors here do a remarkable job conveying love, fear, grief, anger, and more. There's one scene, when Francis finds out his friend is dead, he is wrestling with conflicting emotions; he is torn apart by the news of the murder, but he and his friend also both fancied the same woman, and now his path to courting her is unimpeded. His expression shows the inner turmoil of anger, grief, and yet some relief and excitement. It's wonderfully done. But perhaps the movie's real signature is the visuals. The movie heavily relies on German expressionism for its visuals; the set pieces are sharply and disturbingly angular, with the light and shadow sometimes painted right on the set. The sets look like Willy Wonka's factory if it were run by Salvador Dali possessed by the demon from The Exorcist. The surreal, nightmarish landscape is further augmented by the use of color filters, giving everything a certain hue in different scenes. The whole thing feels like a psychotic fever dream, the ravings of a madman ... which is quite appropriate (yeah, no spoilers here for a century-old film). Is it perfect? No, not by half. There's no getting around the fact that it just isn't scary. It's an early predecessor of horror, sure, and a tip of the hat to it, but as far as frightening goes, no. More creepy and weird than anything. And the soundtrack doesn't always match the mood. Still, at under 80 minutes, it's a foundational piece of horror cinema, and cinema in general. If for no other reason, it's worth seeing what our great-great grandparents found scary.