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It's always odd to me that, when discussing the directors of the German expressionist movement in cinema, Robert Wiene's name is generally omitted from the conversation. Of course, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" specifically is often mentioned, but Wiene himself rarely is. Instead, the "big three" of German expressionist cinema — Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, and Georg Wilhelm Pabst — seem to get all the attention. The reason I say I find this odd is because, from what I've seen, Wiene is clearly the consummate expressionist among the group. Lang, Murnau, and Pabst were great filmmakers, but a lot of their work from the '20s isn't even expressionistic to begin with. One of Pabst's early films was a work of New Objectivity (an early movement in cinematic social realism -- or, in other words, the polar opposite of the formalistically inclined expressionist movement). Half of Lang's and Murnau's respective silent bodies of work could be considered non-expressionistic, and even their expressionistic work pales in comparison to the sheer psychological angst exhibited by films like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "The Hands of Orlac", which embody the expressionist modus operandi far more fully than any film I've ever seen by Lang, Murnau, or Pabst.

Wiene is simply the most unrelentingly expressionistic filmmaker I've seen from the silent era. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", with its surrealistic painted backgrounds conveying a distorted, twisted German landscape — and, by extension, a distorted, twisted German mentality in the wake of World War I — was highly innovative for its time. "The Hands of Orlac", if possible, is even more expressionistic, although the overall aesthetic is different here than it was in Wiene's previous film. Firstly, there's no color tinting here. This was crucial to the film. Color tinting in general I think takes away from a film's artistic integrity, and here, especially, the stunning black-and-white cinematography would have been completely destroyed by the use of tinting.

Truly, the cinematography is brilliant in "The Hands of Orlac", as much as I've seen in any film from the silent era. The atmosphere is so thick, the mood so dark, the style so Gothic, the tone of the film so heavy and bleak, that the film's aesthetic takes on an uncannily palpable texture. The lighting is fantastic. The use of darkness and shadows is a hallmark of expressionistic cinema, but never realized more masterfully than it is here. I was reminded very much of the film's of David Lynch, namely "Eraserhead", "Lost Highway", and "Inland Empire", films which refined the expressionist mode of cinema to its most viscerally and sensorily potent form.

Unfortunately, the film's weakness is in the narrative. The mood and tone and atmosphere of the film are so amazingly brilliant that any elements of plot and story are secondary in priority, if not all together superfluous. But the film is based on a novel, and Wiene puts too much emphasis on realizing the narrative aspects of the source material. The actual action of the film is almost entirely redundant. Everything that needs to be said is said through the film's form, not its content, and yet too much attention is given to the content by the filmmaker. The ending of the film, specifically, is where it begins to lose traction. The film falls apart, to some extent, in the last twenty minutes or so, because it offers too much resolution. This is a flaw we see in virtually all German expressionist films, and in silent cinema in general from this time period. The medium of cinema was still in its childhood and hadn't yet learned important facets of the art of filmmaking such as subtlety, ambiguity, et cetera. Lynch's gift was his ability to take expressionism to the next level, by doing what Wiene was unable to do here, which is to apply on a content level, not just a formal one, the anxiety and fear and bleakness that define the expressionist movement. Formally, Wiene captures the essence of expressionism impeccably with this film, but where he falls short is in transposing this essence from the film's form to its content. This can be done in a multitude of ways. Lynch did it by denying his audience almost any resolution whatsoever to the narrative, leaving the viewer alienated and uncomfortable, and thus enhancing the visceral impact of the viewing experience.

That, however, is my only criticism of the film, along with the fact that, at times, the acting is overwrought. The exaggerated gestures and histrionics are somewhat like the horror equivalent of what you'd see in an early D.W. Griffith short for Biograph. This is common in silent cinema, though, and overall the film has more than enough strengths to compensate for any shortcomings.

If "The Hands of Orlac" is narratively flawed, it's flawed in the execution of that narrative, not in its premise, which has a strong thematic core revolving around notions of personal identity, manipulation, submission, and the psychology that drives human action. Where does the essence of our natures as individuals come from? It is physical or mental? Does it originate in the body or in the mind? Wiene's film, as well as presumably the source material that it's based on, seems to suggest the latter, and this is consistent with German expressionist cinema in general, which places a strong emphasis on the psychological (from the psychic powers of Lang's Dr. Mabuse villain, to Pabst's "Secrets of a Soul", the original film about psychoanalysis).

Along with Murnau's "Faust" and "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans", this may be the best German silent film of the thirty-plus I've seen. It's unique and it's formally brilliant by any and all standards. I recommend it to fans of German expressionism, of silent films in general, and of cinema of any kind.

RATING: 7.67 out of 10 stars

Douglas Sirk isn't a director I've explored much. Having only seen a few of his '50s American melodramas, and knowing he had roots as a German filmmaker, I wanted to go back and get a feel for that part of his career. I'd also never seen any films (by any director) made in Germany during the reign of the Nazi regime (i.e. 1933 to 1945), other than "Triumph of the Will", the infamous mega-propaganda documentary by Leni Riefenstahl. So this film had a lot of historical interest for me. What I did not expect, however, was a quality film in its own right. And interestingly, that's exactly what it turned out to be.

"To New Shores" was a 1937 film directed by Sirk when he was still known by his real name, Detlef Sierck. He had directed seven features and three shorts prior to this film, all for the famous German film studio Universum Film AG (or UFA, for short). The history of UFA is dark and controversial, as they became deeply entrenched in the Nazi machine. Prior to the rise of National Socialism in Germany in 1933, UFA had produced some great films, namely the films of Fritz Lang, such as "Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler", "Die Nibelungen", and "Metropolis". When the Nazis came into power, UFA benefited heavily from it. The Nazis' fascist modus operandi extended to the film industry as well, where they essentially made UFA the official film studio of Nazi Germany (UFA churned out the country's propaganda films, including "Triumph of the Will" in 1935), and forced out the other film studios, leaving UFA with little to no competition in the German film industry. Additionally, the Germans' conquering and occupation of so many other countries across Europe was opening new markets to UFA. In a country under German occupation, the influx of cultural materials, such as films, was heavily regulated by the occupying government, so the Nazis could control exactly what films were available to the people of an occupied nation. And, of course, they made sure that UFA's films were everywhere. Put simply, UFA profited immensely from the Nazis' tyranny in Europe during those years. So, naturally, there's often a sense of moral corruption associated with this particular film studio in terms of its complicity with the Nazis during this part of history.

Douglas Sirk, too, could be criticized for his contributions to the Nazi machine. Filmmakers like Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder (a screenwriter at the time) bailed out of Germany upon Hitler's rise to power, while directors like Ernst Lubitsch and F.W. Murnau were already working in America. But Sirk didn't leave, at least not right away. For a time he stayed and worked for UFA and, by extension, for the Nazis. That being said, in 1937 (after this film and one more), he finally left Germany, supposedly because of political sentiments and because of his Jewish wife. It's also worth noting that, when he got to America, he made "Hitler's Madman", and overtly anti-Nazi film.

"To New Shores" stars Zarah Leander, a Swedish singer who apparently was Germany's biggest star actress during the Nazi years, and this, her first film with UFA, was evidently the film that propelled her to stardom (along with Sirk's next film, "La Habanera", which also starred Leander). Admittedly, it's a strong performance. She does quite well.

Interestingly, the propaganda in this film is actually minimal, all things considered. I found myself surprised that the Nazi government let a film be produced with so little propaganda value. Of course, it was 1937, and the war hadn't begun yet, but still, there's not much here in terms of propaganda. The film is a criticism of social injustice, like much of Sirk's work seems to be ("All That Heaven Allows" is the main example that comes to mind, though, as I said, I haven't seen many of his films). Presumably in order to get the film past the censors, Sirk had to set the film in England, and so all the characters are English, despite speaking German. As a result, the social injustice and cultural decadence depicted in the film can be seen as a criticism of English society specifically, which I'm sure is what the censors were counting on when they passed the film. I do not think, however, that this is how Sirk intended the film to be interpreted. I think Sirk was concerned with social injustice in general and, if anything, in Germany specifically, although he could obviously never convey that kind of message under the strict regulation of the Nazi censors. Nevertheless, much of the cultural criticism in the film has far more implications for Germany than it does for England, and the prison camp to which the female protagonist is sent will inevitably evoke associations with Nazi concentration camps during the war.

Watching "To New Shores", I was reminded very much of Roberto Rossellini's 1942 film "A Pilot Returns". Both films were made in collaboration with the fascist government that ran their respective countries. Furthermore, the films are very similar in style and tone. "To New Shores" has much less in common with the German cinema of the '20s and even early '30s than it does with, for instance, the concurrent French poetic realism films by directors like Marcel Carné, Jean Renoir, and Julien Duvivier.

Overall, it's a quality film with solid entertainment value and a fairly engaging narrative. I never expected that UFA would have churned out a real film like this in the years just before the war. In comparison to Sirk's later work in Hollywood, "To New Shores" lacks both the stylized aesthetic and the intense melodrama that marked those films. It's definitely a melodrama, but it's more subtle and understated than films like "All That Heaven Allows" and "Magnificent Obsession". It's not great cinema, but it's a respectable effort that is probably well worth the watch.

RATING: 6.67 out of 10 stars

Keisuke Kinoshita is a Japanese filmmaker that has never quite gotten his due credit. Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi take the spotlight as the "big three" of Japanese cinema, while filmmakers like Naruse and Kinoshita are left somewhat out of focus. There are, of course, many other well known Japanese filmmakers outside of the big three, but mostly they are from the new wave era (Ôshima, Teshigahara, Imamura, Suzuki, Kobayashi, Kurahara, et cetera). In fact, most Japanese directors can be pigeonholed into either this new wave class of filmmakers, or the classical masters with roots in silent cinema, such as Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse. Kinoshita, however, along with Kurosawa, belongs to neither group. Debuting in the early '40s when Japan was at war, these directors found their roots in a kind of Japanese cinematic limbo, rising to popularity well after the original masters had laid the ground for them, yet preceding the influx of filmmakers that came to be grouped together in the Japanese New Wave during the '60s.

Here we have Kinoshita's debut film, "Port of Flowers", a 1943 wartime effort produced by Shochiku. It begins as a lighthearted and playful diversion, the kind you might expect from a country in the midst of war. Most mainstream wartime films fall into one of two categories: escapism or propaganda. The latter is a means of trying to sway public opinion, boost morale, and garner support for the country's cause, while the former simply seeks to distract audiences from the hardships of wartime life, and all the troubles and anxiety that come with it. Through about the first half of the film, "Port of Flowers" seems to fit comfortably into the escapism category, and I would have preferred it to have stayed there. Unfortunately, by the end of the film, Kinoshita delivers pure and unabashed propaganda. I have no problem with escapism, which is obviously not only a wartime device (the United States engaged it heavily during the depression, for example, and we still see it dominating American cinema to this day). As shallow as it can be, escapism must be acknowledged as an inevitable aspect of the medium, and a positive aspect at that, so long as it's taken in moderation, supplemented with some degree of real culture, real art.

Consequently, I was legitimately enjoying Kinoshita's film, at first. The film's style reminded me of the earliest of Kobayashi's films, which were supervised by Kinoshita, under whom Kobayashi apprenticed, if I'm not mistaken. Unlike Ozu and Mizoguchi, who were quite traditional, "Port of Flowers" exhibits a rather western style of filmmaking. The editing, the humor, and the overall tone of the film probably have more in common with certain American, British, or French films from the '30s than they do with anything Ozu, Mizoguchi, or Naruse were making at the time. It was a light, fun, and entertaining film for about forty minutes. Then comes the propaganda, one large wave of it after another.

It can be difficult to interpret these kinds of films. Often I find I complicate matters by analyzing them from an excessively critical frame of mind, probably because I'm looking for something critical in the filmmaker's message, something I can respect as being more than mere jingoistic propaganda. For instance, there were multiple occasions during "Port of Flowers" were it felt like Kinoshita might be trying to sneak in a criticism of the militarist government and their plunging of the Japanese people into war and despair. The main characters of the film are two conmen who show up at a village where the villager leaders hold in high esteem the memory of a man who had tried to build a shipyard there, and help the village prosper. The conmen intend to fraudulently rob the village of a good deal of money, by pretending to restore their shipyard and build ships. They raise the villagers' hopes, and exploit their loyalty to the memory of the man who had tried to help them. We can easily see this as an allegory for the Japanese militarists' manipulation and deception of the Japanese people. There's definitely room for that interpretation, and I wanted to see it that way. Ultimately, however, by the time the film is concluded, it leaves little doubt as to its nature as an overt propaganda piece.

That being said, if Kinoshita was indeed trying to imbue his film with a critical message, he would have to bury it deeply in order to get it by the censors, so I'm not ruling out that possibility all together. It's almost always difficult to know exactly what a filmmaker is trying to convey with a film, even one as apparently simple as this. I remember having the same issue watching Kurosawa's "The Most Beautiful". It all depends on our individual interpretations of dialogue, symbols, and other facets of the medium. Do the conmen represent the imperialist Japanese government, and the ship symbolizes their deception and manipulation of the Japanese people? Or is the ship simply a symbol of hope, the object by which the Japanese people unify themselves in the face of a common enemy? It seems to be the latter, but again, these things will always be open to some level of interpretation. And yet, the film celebrates the Pearl Harbor attack as a wonderful victory for the Japanese people, and refers to the "American devils" that killed one of their people in a submarine attack, in response to Pearl Harbor. So when all is said and done, there really doesn't seem to be a great deal of room for ambiguity here.

Regardless, I like this film. It's outwardly propagandistic, and it's by no means great cinema, but I think it mostly transcends its shortcomings by achieving a joyously lighthearted tone and a generally fun and entertaining story. It's a quality debut from a director who would only get better.

RATING: 6.33 out of 10 stars