Les Trois Lumières

I don't know why, but one of my favorite film genres is German Expressionism. Like American film noir, it creates a dark vision of human existence from which a flowering of truth unfolds. And this truth is not what the protagonist wants to hear and comes at a great price. I love this stuff.

I recently had the opportunity to view "Der Müde Tod" theatrically, and it was pure heaven. Billed as Fritz Lang's first big hit, it's easy to see why. Filled with lavish spectacle and special effects, the film still maintains it's human level. And such a story: a young newlywed husband is taken by Death on his honeymoon. As in a fairytale, the bride is able to confront Death and beg for you her husbands return. Death will grant her this if she can once cheat him of one who is about to die. She is given three chances to pull off this trick, which transport her to Persia, Venice and China. Death, her husband and herself are characters in each of these fanciful locales. All this leads back to a gripping finale in Germany where it all began.

As far as silent movies go, this is one of the best.

Directed by Fritz Lang, best known for his masterpiece "M", "Der Mude Tod" stands as probably his best early work. A silent classic, it tells the story of a young couple in a small German village and their encounter with the personification of death in a form of mysterious stranger that appears in a tavern and sits to their table indicating that the time is up for the young husband. After the death of her beloved the young woman is so desperate that she finally manages to enter the kingdom of dead and stand face to face with personification of Death himself (a major influence on Ingmar Bergman's Death figure in the Seventh Seal later) and ask him to give her beloved back to her. The Death finally yields to her persistence and agrees to deliver back the life of her husband, but only if she manages to find any person that would give up his life in exchange. She desperatly tries to convince various people to give up, beginning from a very old man and coming as far as Asylum for mentally ill but all in vain, for how bad the life of poor guys is, they are still very much reluctant to give it up, but it's only the beginning, the center of the film being three different stories of lost love, told by Death to the young woman, similar to her own, but set in three different exotic locations such as: China, Venice and Turkey.

A really amazing silent film, very romantic story but at the same time a moral tale with philosophical message in it. A must see. 10/10

I really was impressed by Fritz Lang's "Destiny". It seemed like the pictorialization of a timeless German fable rather than a figment of Lang's imagination. The story of a young woman in medieval times whose beloved fiancée is taken by death while they travel through a small village, it is timelessly haunting even now. It must have really hit people hard in 1921 Germany, three years after the death and destruction of WWI. The framing story is set around three mini-stories set in ancient Persia, Renaissance Venice and China. These stories are well done and diverting, but also a bit distracting from the poignant main story which was what I really responded to. Lang seemed totally assured and powerful as a filmmaker even in 1921. Lil Dagover was affecting as the heroine and Bernhard Goetzke gave a powerful and moving performance as Death. He was also great in Joe May's "The Indian Tomb" released in 1921 also. I highly recommend "Destiny" or "Der Mude Tod" to anyone at all interested in silent film or the career of Fritz Lang.

Contemporary audiences must have been awed by the spectacle of the three exotic adventure episodes within `Der Mude Tod', but the imagery Fritz Lang employs in the bookends is the most fascinating aspect of the film today. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton had already occasionally used clever camera tricks, but Fritz Lang's film revels in special effects. Through editing and double exposure, he makes it look even now as though ghosts are disappearing through a garden wall, or that two lovers' souls are exiting their bodies. The most exciting thing about Lang's magic, of course, is that his images act as a foundation for beautiful, poetic ideas. His unusually sympathetic portrayal of Death is just one example of why the outer story resonates so much more than the obvious melodrama in its middle. Lang seems to argue that, while love cannot overcome death, it retains a power which even death would respect and envy.

Rating: 8

The films of Weimar Germany are an interesting and exciting period to study. They share a rich cultural heritage, similar themes and revolutionary film styles and techniques. "Destiny" (Der Müde Tod) is the earliest mature work I've seen from Fritz Lang, one of the period's principal filmmakers--much better than the Spiders series. It's somewhat expressionistic, in the loose sense usually applied to these films, which is to say it's thematically dark and, occasionally, photographed and designed intentionally to affect mood and express emotions. An exceptional crew of cinematographers and art directors, as in many of the best films of the period, support the director.

Yet, I think the narrative has its faults; the frame narrative is great, but only the last of the three episodes within was entertaining--for its light and magical treatment. In the film, a girl's young lover dies, and Death offers her three tries to resurrect his life. The episodes are flimsy at times, but some impressive imagery and powerful performances by Lil Dagover and Bernhard Goetzke make up for much of that. Additionally, the exotic Arabian, historical Venetian and Chinese settings for the three inner episodes are well rendered, surely, but it's the haunting graveyard scenes and the meetings with Death, especially the room of candles scenes, that I'll remember. They're not merely exotic; they're otherworldly--the atmospheric, moving and imaginative places I want movies to take me.