We are introduced to Wozzeck as he is shaving his superior officer. We can see him drifting off, the knife somewhat out of place, his reaction to the officer's words, the knife straightening, slowly gliding in a straighter and straighter position, playing with the skin, ready to slice his throat at any given moment. This scene sends chills down your spine - and sets the mood for the entire film.
Wozzeck, directed by the fairly unknown Georg C. Klaren, really represents what is so interesting and special about German cinema just after WW2 - a period of cinematic creativity, with many overlaps with the expressions we saw in the early Weimar era. Wozzeck takes this one step further by adopting a visual atmosphere reminiscent of the silent era, frequently with faded edges, and play with the image itself - and to one specific aim. You can, through the cinematography, feel the descent into madness, and experience the increasingly (well, honestly, consistently) unsettling world of our protagonist.
The only thing contemporary film I can think of comparing it to is really Hangover Square, but only to the extent that the visuals are a gateway to the madness of our protagonist - the expression here goes in a very different direction, i.e. where Hangover Square bring noir aesthetics to 19th century England, Wozzech takes us into a horror landscape of far more stripped back dimensions. In some ways Wozzeck could genuinely feel like an atmospheric arthouse film from the 80s or 90s - the kind of stripped back nightmarish expression toying with bleak existentialism just wasn't a staple of 40s cinema - and this makes it even more enjoyable.
The only downside here is the exposition, i.e. the real opening, showing Wozzeck's body in a science lad, and a battle of ideas between the dr. who is happy to be able to cut up his new body, and charging an offense against this view of disposable humanity, leading into a charge of freeing the people of oppression - and the premise that Wozzeck was pushed to commit the acts he did by the society he lived in. This is too blunt, too clear and forcefully obvious in steering our mind and connecting it to the issue of class. Luckily this framing plays a minimal role in the film itself, which is simply gorgeous.
