Le montreur d'ombres

German expressionism is on display in this strange drama from director Arthur Robison. A rich aristocrat (Fritz Kortner) invites some other dilettantes over for an evening of entertainment. The aristocrat sees the silhouette of what appears to be his lascivious wife (Ruth Wyher) being sexually groped by the trio of guests. This understandably upsets the aristocrat, and things aren't helped by his mischievous butler (Fritz Rasp) who feeds into his paranoia. When the night's entertainment shows up, he's a Shadowplayer (Alexander Granach), meaning he uses shadows and shadow puppets to tell tales. His performance causes everyone present to consider their actions.

The highlights here are the numerous inventive ways shadows are used to tell the story, and Rasp as the evil butler. He's long been a favorite of mine among German character actors, and I loved seeing this early role for him. .

One of the most influential of the German Expressionist films of the 1920's. The most radical aspect is the lighting, where the shadows are sometimes more important than the actors.

Also unusual is that there are no titles except at the start to introduce the characters, who are just types and do not have names, just descriptive titles (husband, wife, youth, servant, etc.).

The shadow puppet show is similar to what is seen more extensively in Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, Die (1925).

This had been something of a holy grail for me: while there's very little that's actually written about it (even following this DVD release from Kino - I came across only 1 online review!), its reputation as a highpoint of the German Expressionist movement had always preceded it and I had personally been intrigued for years by a single still from the film in the British periodical from the early 80s, "The Movie".

Well, having at long last watched the film (thanks, Kino, also the 'rescuers' of another rare Silent classic - Paul Leni's THE MAN WHO LAUGHS [1928]), I can say that it's a genuine masterwork which well and truly belongs with the other classics of the early German cinema (particularly the Expressionist horror films, even if WARNING SHADOWS is not a genre effort per se). Still, there are undeniable macabre overtones in the story about a dinner party comprising a jealous man, his flirtatious wife and her four suitors that's 'invaded' by the owner of a traveling puppet-show who may or may not be a magician as well.

Actually, the film looks forward to several others in its theme and approach: first of all, its complete lack of intertitles (this is a purely visual film) precedes F.W. Murnau's more celebrated THE LAST LAUGH (1924), the silhouetted puppet show anticipates Lotte Reiniger's THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926; the first 'animated' film) and the 'film-within-a-film' scenario (where we have the magician 'borrowing' the shadows of the guests in order to allow them to see for themselves what is to be the tragic outcome of the night) also looks forward to a similar 'morality play' performance at the centre of another Murnau film, TARTUFFE (1925)!

As I said, the film's look - sets by Albin Grau and camera-work by Fritz Arno Wagner (both of whom had worked on Murnau's NOSFERATU [1922]) - and the techniques deployed - particular attention is given to the lighting scheme as, in the absence of dialogue, this functions as much as an illumination of the various characters and what they may be thinking as the actors interpreting them! - are incredible (even after all these years): the plot itself is very simple and, in fact, if the film has a fault it's that it takes this a bit too slowly; all the various characters are introduced at the very start in a prologue which occupies the first five minutes of the picture! Then again, by the time the magician's terrifying and murderous visions had reached their crescendo (this here is, by far, the best section of the film), I had become so completely absorbed that I was actually surprised when the picture shifted back to the main narrative, indicating that it was nearing conclusion!

As befits an Expressionist film, the acting style (but also the make-up) is slightly exaggerated with the result that some of it may seem awkward today (the leading lady and the three elderly suitors, for instance). Much better are the three more notable names in the cast - Fritz Kortner as the husband, Gustav von Wangeheim (who had been Jonathan Harker in NOSFERATU) as the infatuated youth and especially Alexander Granach (yet another NOSFERATU alumnus, where he had made a creepy Renfield) as the scruffy-looking and somewhat unhinged magician; indeed, the latter makes for a truly memorable character - and I could just imagine him going to the next house or the next village after the end of our story to provide some more of his specialized 'entertainment'!

The figure of director Arthur Robison, then, is something of an enigma: he was an American who ended up working in Germany; I haven't seen any of his other work and doubt how much of it actually survives at this juncture - but he did contrive to make the original version of THE INFORMER (featuring, apart from a very young Ray Milland, German actors Lars Hanson and Lya De Putti!) in Britain in 1929, while in 1935 came his remake of the oft-filmed German folktale THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE, starring the great Anton Walbrook in the famous dual role...

"Warning Shadows" shouldn't work as well as it does. There are no titles, causing the plot to be confusing if not closely paid attention to; the Expressionistic elements are abundant but also strangely removed in style; the acting is often tongue-in-cheek, and the overall artiness is seemingly self-conscious. However, those same elements also contribute to this film's majesty and originality. There is simply no other film (that I'm aware of, anyway) that approaches the beauty and sheer erotic oddness of this obscure classic. I cannot adequately describe exactly what it is that makes "Warning Shadows" one of my all-time favorite motion pictures, so...just see it. It's available on DVD from our great friends at Kino.

I shudder to think what might have been of the German school if Caligari and Nosferatu had been among the lost films. There's just not a whole lot that has reached us from this movement, much less truly great works. Recently restored by the Murnau foundation, this is meant to be one of the most evocative ones, a great title we had been missing.

Most of it passes with little notice, a night of erotic angst, rivalry and a marriage falling apart with the lavish mansion of a baron as the stage of the theater. The prospective lovers feign and thrust, eventually really thrust; we get to see this in shadows. Shadows, a nocturnal hallucination as the title goes. It's the arrival of a shadow-player that is the most intriguing here. Oh, eventually his magick tricks were all serving a benign purpose, domestic bliss is salvaged from desire most foul, the soul restored into proper order.

The trick is that he gives the parties involved a vision of what might unfold, the dangers involved. His small audience wakes up from the cinematic illusion dazzled, baffled, rubbing their eyes with disbelief. And we pull further back in the final shot to see curtains falling on this level that we experienced as reality.

Is everything inside the nested story so artificial because it was the times still inflected by theater, or because the shadow play is inherently artificial? Is the shadow player the protagonist himself, made from his mirrored image, and so conjuring for himself a wish-fulfillment illusion where everything is made alright?

If you were looking to come to this for German expressionism, you might want to reconsider. There is a great shot of the illusionist pushing back, elongating the shadows of his players. But it's serving and is part of the great self-referential tradition of cinema, films about the illusion of watching films.