In 1927 Oskar Fischinger set out from Munich to Berlin on foot, traveling like many Europeans did before private ownership of automobiles became common. Only this time he took his motion picture camera with him, using it like a still camera, taking still frames and the occasional short shot along the way. When projected, this becomes a dazzling montage of the German countryside and people with a constantly tumbling-forward perspective, preserving many scenes and locations later obliterated by the Second World War. While München-Berlin Wanderung was not the first film of its kind -- Frederick S. Armitage and A. E. Weed's Down the Hudson (1903) was likely that -- it is freewheeling, deliberately artistic and experimental in spirit, closer to the single-frame films made decades later by Kurt Kren than it is to anything else made in 1920s Europe.
2 Reviews
Too restless for my taste
Horst_In_Translation8 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This is "München-Berlin Wanderung" or "Walking from Munich to Berlin", a 4-minute short film from 1927, which means it will have its 90th anniversary next year and this German production was already made years before the Nazis came into power, which puts it nicely in a perspective of time. The director is Oskar Fischinger and he was still in his 20s here. He made this one briefly before starting his "Study" film series. I personally cannot say I enjoyed the watch at all. It's all very random and the title is not really relevant in the film. The shots are extremely fast, which means that none of them made a lasting impression. You see children, grown-ups, animals, landscapes and lots of houses, so nothing really informative or creative here either. I really wonder why anybody would give this one more than 4 stars really. Filmmaking may not have been great in the 1920s yet, but there are many examples that are way superior compared to this boring black-and-white silent short film. Highly not recommended.
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