German Expressionism was a style of filmmaking that seemed loaded with potential, especially after the early success of The Cabinet of Caligari. The idea of the movement was that the filmmakers would make the sets reflect the interior state of the characters, which is a neat way to get around the seeming perspective limitation of cinema when compared to literature. In practice, however, Caligari has remained pretty much the only famous film to do this successfully and consistently in spite of the utilization of this technique in very small measures in several films of the period, most famously in those of Murnau and Lang.
I was hoping that the relatively obscure Warning Shadows (aka Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination) might be another film that took full advantage of what I see as the great potential of this movement but I was somewhat disappointed to see that it uses it minimally. First of all, in spite of a couple of cues that suggest a good deal of the film isn't quite real or even that it's all the dream of a character, this idea is never fully developed so there really isn't a specific interior state to reflect. Even if you work with the assumption that the film doesn't represent any specific perspective but is meant to look like a dream, the set design is still lacking because it just seems like a staged mockup of a large manor house. In fact, for a film that foregoes dialogue and intertitles altogether, Warning Shadows is surprisingly stagy and the rooms seem artificial in a bad way, especially since it isn't common to see more than one wall at a time here.
The plot and its execution is solid but unremarkable. The film is about a very jealous man who has invited four amorous young men to have dinner with him and his coquettish wife. It's obvious where this is headed all along, although things are complicated by the presence of an entertainer who can do amazing things with shadow puppets. He uses these puppets to show what might happen if the young men don't cool their heels around the jealous husband. This is a simple plot that is still somewhat hard to follow because of the lack of dialogue and is further complicated by the languorous pace. On the bright side, the entertainer character seems to be a neat variation on the supernatural trickster archetype.
Anyway, the highlight here is still the visuals, especially the warning shadows themselves. There's something inherently creepy about shadows and especially a mysterious person who can manipulate them for reasons of his own and even though he ultimately turns out to be relatively benevolent the film still manages to pull of a few unsettling sequences. Further, there are a couple of scenes in which the characters' behavior is odd in a way that calls dreams to mind, so this isn't just your run of the mill tale of jealousy. I also have to give the film some credit for relying so much on visuals and the last scene is suitably bizarre. Overall, Warning Shadows is a worthwhile watch that doesn't quite live up some of its more famous predecessors.
I was hoping that the relatively obscure Warning Shadows (aka Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination) might be another film that took full advantage of what I see as the great potential of this movement but I was somewhat disappointed to see that it uses it minimally. First of all, in spite of a couple of cues that suggest a good deal of the film isn't quite real or even that it's all the dream of a character, this idea is never fully developed so there really isn't a specific interior state to reflect. Even if you work with the assumption that the film doesn't represent any specific perspective but is meant to look like a dream, the set design is still lacking because it just seems like a staged mockup of a large manor house. In fact, for a film that foregoes dialogue and intertitles altogether, Warning Shadows is surprisingly stagy and the rooms seem artificial in a bad way, especially since it isn't common to see more than one wall at a time here.
The plot and its execution is solid but unremarkable. The film is about a very jealous man who has invited four amorous young men to have dinner with him and his coquettish wife. It's obvious where this is headed all along, although things are complicated by the presence of an entertainer who can do amazing things with shadow puppets. He uses these puppets to show what might happen if the young men don't cool their heels around the jealous husband. This is a simple plot that is still somewhat hard to follow because of the lack of dialogue and is further complicated by the languorous pace. On the bright side, the entertainer character seems to be a neat variation on the supernatural trickster archetype.
Anyway, the highlight here is still the visuals, especially the warning shadows themselves. There's something inherently creepy about shadows and especially a mysterious person who can manipulate them for reasons of his own and even though he ultimately turns out to be relatively benevolent the film still manages to pull of a few unsettling sequences. Further, there are a couple of scenes in which the characters' behavior is odd in a way that calls dreams to mind, so this isn't just your run of the mill tale of jealousy. I also have to give the film some credit for relying so much on visuals and the last scene is suitably bizarre. Overall, Warning Shadows is a worthwhile watch that doesn't quite live up some of its more famous predecessors.