During a dinner, given by a wealthy baron and his wife, attended by four of her suitors in a 19th century German manor, a shadow-player rescues the marriage by giving all the guests a vision what might happen tonight if the baron stays jealous and the suitors do not reduce their advances towards his beautiful wife.
What strikes me about this film is just how German it is. I have no idea what was going on in Germany in the 1920s, but they had a definite vision on how to use shadows and light in their films. While this is not German expressionism, it is not so far removed that we cannot see the German aesthetic.
In some ways, we might be better comparing this to "Prince Achmed", a cartoon that relied on shadows rather than drawing. Again, a German film. I am surprised by how much a country's boundary could define their films. Today, I do not feel that a film made in any one country is so obviously differently from another...
What strikes me about this film is just how German it is. I have no idea what was going on in Germany in the 1920s, but they had a definite vision on how to use shadows and light in their films. While this is not German expressionism, it is not so far removed that we cannot see the German aesthetic.
In some ways, we might be better comparing this to "Prince Achmed", a cartoon that relied on shadows rather than drawing. Again, a German film. I am surprised by how much a country's boundary could define their films. Today, I do not feel that a film made in any one country is so obviously differently from another...