Das indische Grabmal erster Teil - Die Sendung des Yoghi

I originally reviewed this movie back in 2009, 9 years after it first appeared on DVD. It took 18 tears for it to get a Blu-ray release and, for me originally, it wasn't worth the wait. Although the movie was restored by the F. W. Murnau Foundation, the Blu-ray looks no different than the 2000 Image DVD. Where the Blu-ray missed out, in my original opinion, was in the new 2018 accompanying score by a Czech couple, Irena & Vojtech Havlovi, known as The Havels. At first, I got the feeling that they weren't watching the movie when they composed the music for it.

The 2000 soundtrack by Eric Beheim, which is a pastiche of themes by Rimsky-Korsakov, seemed much more suited to the material. Exoticism deserves exoticism not improvisation I thought. The Murnau Foundation may not have been able to obtain the rights to the Beheim score but they should have come up with something similar. This new score has a Philip Glass like quality which takes getting used to but by the end of this nearly 4 hour cinematic journey, its hypnotic qualities suit the material perfectly. Having re-watched the new Blu-ray and since the picture quality remains the same, I have come to prefer The Havels' new score. The Blu-ray also contains a 45 minute special feature on the making of the film and those involved. For a comparison, below is my original DVD review.

ORIGINAL 2009 REVIEW:

As the first decade of the 21st century nears its end, I have been going back in recent months to revisit some of my earliest silent film DVDs. One of my early favorites was Joe May (pronounced MY)'s THE INDIAN TOMB from 1921 and I am happy to report that after seeing it again, it still remains one of my favorites. I've always enjoyed films with a touch of the exotic and this one has it in spades. The Indian setting along with the supernatural overtones creates a film that is both old fashioned and modern at the same time.

The story of a vengeful maharajah (Conrad Veidt), his all powerful yogi (Berhard Goetzke), an English architect (Olaf Fanss) and his fiance (Mia May) covers a lot of ground with many plot twists and complications from those twists. It's a hard film to describe, it just needs to be experienced. All the resources available to the German filmmakers of the time are put to use creating a film that ideally captures the less realistic but fully engaging world of the silent movie.

The film is actually two separate but connected features and runs a total of 221 minutes (all on one DVD). Part 1 THE MISSION OF THE YOGI sets everything up while Part 2 THE TIGER OF BENGAL works everything out leading to a fateful conclusion. The overall quality of the print is above average and there's a fine synthesized score from Eric Beheim that draws heavily on the music of Rimsky-Korsakov. A textbook of German silent cinema, THE INDIAN TOMB would be remade by Fritz Lang (the original writer) in 1959. If you enjoy silent movies, this film is a must-see...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

A jealous & vindictive Rajah sends a powerful Yogi to entice a famous English architect into constructing a marvelous mausoleum in which to inter the prince's faithless wife.

THE Indian TOMB: THE MISSION OF THE YOGI is a perfect example of the grand German cinema epics created during the silent era. Berlin film mogul Joe May turned the full resources of his modern Maytown studio over to the production, using 300 workmen to create the lavish sets necessary to tell such an exotic tale.

May contracted with authoress Thea von Harbou to write the script for THE Indian TOMB, based on her 1917 novella. May assigned young Fritz Lang as her co-writer. Lang, who married von Harbou after starting the writing project, desired to direct the films, but he was deemed too inexperienced for such an important project by the financiers and May enthusiastically became the director himself. Furious, Lang left May's employ; it would be more than 35 years before he was able to direct his own Indian TOMB films.

THE Indian TOMB: THE MISSION OF THE YOGI was an artistic triumph, presenting wonderful vistas & sequences to delight the viewer's imagination. Right from the eerie prolog, when an Indian holy man is literally disinterred from his living grave, the film grips the audience with a promise of high adventure & mysticism. Further scenes, including those set in the Tiger Arena adjoining the Maharajah's Palace, or the Cave of the Penitents situated below it, add intricate strokes to the broad canvas which is THE Indian TOMB.

Conrad Veidt is mesmerizing as the troubled Rajah. With large, hypnotic eyes set in a bony face, he seems forever contemplating terrible memories. Veidt gives a measured, stylized performance, moving very slowly and deliberately, almost somnambulistic in his actions. The one short scene where he lets his longing & heartbreak push through to the surface is startling just from the sheer pent-up passion released for a few seconds - as if a mighty dam is breached and almost immediately sealed again.

Today, Conrad Veidt is remembered in America almost entirely for his villainous Major Strasser in CASABLANCA. This is a shame, as there was so much more to his life. Cultured & sophisticated, Veidt was considered to be one of the best (and one of the most handsome) actors in Germany, and he was a tremendous matinée idol in the 1920's. Later, he became courageously outspoken in his anti-Nazi sentiments and he found it safer to relocate to England and eventually to America. In Hollywood, Veidt continued to denounce the evils of the Third Reich. Tragically, he was not to live long enough to see the inevitable defeat of Hitler. Completing only one further film after CASABLANCA, Conrad Veidt died of a heart attack while playing golf on April 3, 1943. He was 50 years old.

Equally intriguing is Bernhard Goetzke as the mysterious, implacable Yogi. Imparting menace in every movement, he is a worthy henchman to the Rajah. Olaf Fønss as the architect & Mia May (the director's wife) as his courageous fiancée, present a refreshingly middle-aged view of romantic love.

The story was originally presented as a filmed diptych. THE Indian TOMB: THE MISSION OF THE YOGI (1921) was followed by THE Indian TOMB: THE TIGER OF BENGAL (1921). A box office disappointment in Germany & a failure in America, the films quickly passed into obscurity. However, down through the decades their reputations scored a renaissance. After much painstaking effort both films were archivally restored to their original luster. They have been released together on home video & DVD.

If only for the striking performance of Conrad Veidt the films would be significant. But their epic proportions & high adventure set in a remarkable culture are a window into the very best which German cinema had to offer in the 1920's.

"The Indian Tomb" features a sprawling, epic story, eye-popping sets and costumes and a cast of hundreds if not thousands. If you're in the mood for an old-fashioned, exotic adventure of the type that would be impossible to produce nowadays its a good bet for you. This is a two-part film and the DVD with both parts is three-and-a-half hours long, so be prepared for a few nights viewing. Its also rather slow going at times, with some scenes being dragged out a bit too much for modern viewers, but overall I found it a treat to watch.

The most impressive actors to me were Conrad Veidt as the Rajah and Bernhard Goetzke as Ramigani the Yogi. Both have rather amazing and memorable faces. Goetzke's presence is remarkable and he was just as impressive in the same year playing Death in Fritz Lang's "Der Mude Tod". He is unknown today, possible because it looks as if he appeared in several Nazi productions in WWII so was perhaps blacklisted afterwards, but he was quite memorable in these two performances, the only two pieces of his work I have seen. I was not very impressed, however, by the nominal leads of the film, Olaf Fanss as the architect who travels to India to build a tomb for the Rajah and Mia May as his sweetheart. They both seem a bit too middle-aged and stodgy to be the center of all this intrigue, but perhaps that was the style of the times. The decidedly pudgy Ms. May, who was married to the film's director, Joe May, was reputedly 37 when the film was made, but could pass for 57 and in certain scenes has an unfortunate resemblance to George Washington in a dress. It was a big mistake in the "sacrifice" scene to put her in a bare-midriff outfit.

Still, this film is good nostalgic fun with man-eating tigers, leper colonies, globe-trotting action, all-powerful yogis and insanely jealous rajahs. Only Steven Spielberg could get away with it nowadays.

"The Indian Tomb" in two parts 1921 Mysteries of India, Part I: Truth Mysteries of India, Part II: Above All Law

It is based on the 1918 novel Das indische Grabmal by Thea von Harbou (27 December 1888 - 1 July 1954). You remember Thea the author of Metropolis (1927).

This silent movie scenario by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou and directed by Joe May. Filmed in May-Film-Gelände, Woltersdorf bei Erkner, Brandenburg, Germany.

Originally titled "Das indische Grabmal zweiter Teil - Der Tiger von Eschnapur"

"The Indian Tomb," asks in all ages of the mysterious magic forces that are special to the Indian penitents -- Yogis. Laws of nature do not apply to the Yogi in the ecstasy of willpower, and it is said that he can even conquer death. The Indian penitent aspires to achieve nirvana, the state of complete surrender. To achieve the highest purity by dead-ending all senses, the Yogis have themselves buried alive. If the Yogi is revived from this sleep of death, he must fulfill his awakener's deepest wish, to convince him of the futility of all worldly desires.

Yep Prince Ayan III, The Maharajah of Bengal (Conrad Veidt) does the deed. With a little help, he revives a Yogi (Bernhard Goetzke) and then tells the yogi where to go.

I cannot tell the plot without giving away the suspense; so fade from this review to the movie. Now watch as it unfolds.

I can say at a pivotal moment(s) of understanding the background music turns from innocuous to Wagnerian.

Just a side note the movie is filled with learned men without libraries with one exception of Professor Leyden (Hermann Picha), the Orientalist. We get to see all kinds of gadgets in the execution of the story such as a wireless transmitter, the latest aircraft, and more. If you like to see Leni Riefenstahl in her mountain movies, you will not be disappointed in this one.

It is over way too soon.

We are slowly correcting the terrible errors committed in 1928-1929 that led to a sort of cultural holocaust during which the golden age of cinema was largely forgotten, destroyed or reduced to a caricature, so that for nearly a century an entirely inaccurate view of cinema informed or rather deformed all cinema-criticism and all histories of cinema. I have referred to this re-discovery of early cinema elsewhere as a process akin to the Renaissance and firmly believe it is one of the most culturally important events of the last ten or twenty years.

Nevertheless we still have some way to go. So long as it is still possible for people to make remarks like "I am not very keen on silent cinema" without realising that they are accusing themselves of cultural philistinism - it is a bit like saying, "I don't think much of Shakespeare" or "I don't care for Italian Renaissance painting". It's a view one is perfectly entitled to hold but it marks one as a cultural ignoramus.

"Silent cinema" does for most modern audience involve a learning process (as does Shakespeare or "Renaissance" Italian art because we have very largely lost the capacity for concentration that it required of its audience. There are of course good and bad films at the period just as there are in any period but the principal failing is not with the material (except in so far as it has so often been badly conserved) but in us as viewers who have learned everything we know about cinema from "dark age" commentaries that had themselves little understanding of early cinema. It is something that only time and a gradual process of re-education will correct.

The German Monumentalfilm is not one of my favorite genres from the period and I am not a great fan of "orientalism", another fashion of the period that strongly marks this film, but even so this Joe May film seems to me an interesting and important work, superbly filmed and mis en scène by a very expert technical crew (the same essentially who would later work on the masterpieces of Fritz Lang). It was not a huge success at the time - it is rather slow - but it has if anything improved with age as have other of May's films of the period (the superb Asphalt for instance).

It is interesting too because of its subsequent history. Our understanding of post-silent cinema (I am not idiot enough to say "I don't think much of sound cinema") can in fact help us to appreciate earlier films once we case to be prejudiced in favour of one or the other. Asphalt, for instance, is more interesting because we know of the Hitchcockian thrillers of which it is an important forebear. And in this case we have the opportunity to compare the silent version with two later sound versions, that by Eichberg in 1938 and that by Fritz Lang in 1959.

Lang was co-writer of the script along with the original novelist Thea von Harbou (later Lang's wife) and is said to have resented not being asked to direct it (May as producer did give opportunities to other directors) because of his inexperience. He had already left Germany by the time the Eichberg version was made and it was not until his return to Germany in the late fifties, after all the bitterness and frustration of his years in the US, that Lang was at last able to produce his own version. The long-awaited return was something of a disappointment (Germany no longer had the wonderful cinema industry it had had in the twenties and thirties and Lang himself was perhaps no longer the great director he had been in those days), so the 1959 films are not amongst Lang's best. Nevertheless we have a lavish "modern" version by a director of great repute.

I have written elsewhere of the reluctance critics still show in accepting the possibility that a silent film version may be better than a sound one even when the latter is a much-acclaimed film by a much-acclaimed director (the 1925 Niblo Ben Hur is in my view far superior to the 1959 Wyler version). There are in fact many examples where this is the case but the example I like to give, because it is so glaring, is that of the two versions of What Price Glory?, Raoul Walsh's irresistible black-and-white 1926 version (a great hit at the time with Victor Mclaglen and Edmund Lowe)and John Ford's dire 1952 Technicolor version (with James Cagney, no less).

So full marks to the reviewer who makes the comparison between this and the Lang film and comes to the honest conclusion (I think quite correctly) that these are the better films. They are the only version in which Thea von Harbou's purpose as a writer is really clear (the story of the revived Yogi may be a lot of hookum but it makes sense of the story). Despite being a bit too much of a studio film compared particularly with the Eichberg version which was largely shot on location in India), it is consistently the most interesting version visually. Lang's by comparison is simply glossy (rather as Wyler's Ben Hur is when compared to Niblo's), lacking any of the more radical cinematic effects that marked German films of the twenties and thirties and which would no doubt have been present in a Lang version had he ever had the chance to make one at that period.

This remains a relatively minor film of the period but reveals very well how the strength of the German industry was not simply its great directors or its great actors or its great technicians but in the combination of all three. Within that context, May, who was no genius, could produce very fine films; without that context Lang, who was, produced work that was less than wonderful.