Number 159 on IMDb's Top 250
A man named Francis relates a story about his best friend Alan and his fiancee Jane. Alan takes him to a fair where they meet Dr. Caligari, who exhibits a somnambulist (sleepwalker), Cesare (pronounced Chez-ah-ray), that can predict the future. Hilarity ensues. When Alan asks how long he has to live, Cesare says he has until dawn. The prophecy comes to pass, as Alan is murdered, and Cesare is a prime suspect. Cesare creeps into Jane's bedroom and abducts her, running from the townspeople and finally dying of exhaustion. Meanwhile, the police discover a dummy in Cesare's cabinet, while Caligari flees. Francis tracks Caligari to a mental asylum, where it is discovered that he is the director! Or is he?
Trivia: Widely considered to be the first true horror film ever made. Weeks before the initial release of the film, posters with the tag-line "Du mubt Caligari werden!" ("You have to become Caligari!") where put up in Berlin without the slightest hint that they where promotion for the upcoming movie. The expressionist styles of the sets in Francis's story were the result of the character's insanity. Fritz Lang suggested that writer Hans Janowitz add an opening scene and a closing scene in a non-expressionistic setting, the garden, to show the difference between normal reality, and the expressionistic reality of the madman Francis. When Robert Wiene came in to direct the film, he followed Lang's suggestion and added the opening and closing scenes to the film.
German expressioniscinemama, huh? Well, all I can tell you is that this movie has some weird looking sets (you finally understand why by the end of the movie when it is revealed that it is Francis, not Caligari that is insane and that his story is skewed by that). I kind of wonder what it would have been like to see this movie when it came out without the benefit of 86 years of cinema history and not knowing twist at the ending. But I don't have that advantage so for me this movie was kind of meh.
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