Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (1920) ***½

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. is one of the earliest entries in the horror genre and a highly influential German Expressionist film. For such an early production, it carries with it many of the staples seen in horror films today, such as the mysterious, almost supernatural, killer and the twist ending. Being a silent film adds to the general spooky atmosphere as most of the scenes take place with characters alone at night, with obvious little need for dialogue and therefore no distracting intertitles to break the tension of the images on the screen. The entire production is keyed to eliciting the necessary sentiments of a horror film to make up for a lack of characters speaking to one another. The effective musical score does more to contribute than any dialogue ever would, as it conveys the necessary emotional states of the characters such as Dr. Caligari's (Werner Krauss) theme which alludes to his suspicious and sinister nature. The makeup for the character is a ghastly, sunken appearance so it's immediately known that this is a man not to be trusted. Even the set design works doubly well as both depicting the nightmarish world the characters have found themselves in as well as setting up the twist that everything we have seen has taken place in the tortured and fractured mind of Francis (Friedrich Fehér).

Being released shortly after the end of World War I, it can be postulated that the film serves as a visual depiction of the weariness and depression of the German people coming off their defeat and emotional isolation from the rest of the continent. Terror has pervaded even this small town, during a carnival, an event which should be filled with joy and wonder. Cesare (Conrad Veidt) serves as the embodiment of their fear, as Caligari leads him unwillingly from town to town committing unspeakable acts of violence and murder that Cesare would find abhorrent if not for his rare condition which leaves him prone to suggestion. Perhaps the German people felt similarly used and taken advantage of during the fighting of the war. It's never been publicly stated that the film is meant to be allegory of public sentiment, but it's not difficult to see the parallels between the story and real world events at the time of production and release.

There is genuine apprehension that Caligari will be free to unleash his powers of persuasion on Cesare to commit more evil deeds and a necessity to keep him under lock and key for the general welfare of society. As director of the local insane asylum, Dr. Caligari should be a trustworthy caretaker but he abuses his power and authority for own personal selfish needs. He allows his obsession to overcome his good judgment and his responsibility to those in his care. He abuses their conditions to fulfill his own desires. That betrayal of trust continues in the thread of expressing the public opinion of the German people. Even with the twist ending effectively mooting all these arguments as it was all an act of imagination, it's still symbolic in the sense that this fantasy is in the head of Francis who has a genuine fear of the asylum doctor he states in Caligari and what he is capable of in his nightmarish visions. Even with the events not necessarily having taken place, it's still a painfully frightful delusion on Francis' part. In effect his state of mind mirrors fears of the people even if it hasn't been done yet, the possibility still exists and that alone is worthy of caution.

The story is by no means an overly complicated one nor is it much of a mystery as the audience is tuned into who the killer is at any early point. The fascination comes with such a horrifying figure who stalks the innocent townspeople at night, murdering them in their beds while they sleep unware of the dangers creeping around outside. At such an early age in the art of film making, the plot must have been unsettling to people who were still acclimating to this relatively new medium, which saw relatively limited use prior to World War I in Germany. The horror motif itself had not yet become an established genre which certainly must have contributed to audience reaction. Dr. Caligari is quite possibly the first "mad scientist" in film who uses his controversial experiments as a source of evil. It set the bar high for all films to follow in the same vein as well as contributing a successful blueprint for how to shock and terrify audiences up to and including today's.

Favorite moment: Flouting the constraints of the silent era, Dr. Caligari's moment of madness when he becomes obsessed with emulating his historical namesake, his mental state is depicted visually by "I must become Caligari" being written across the frame and on the walls of the sets. A truly astonishing feat done in such an early age of cinema, it impresses with both its ingenuity at recreating an inner voice without uttering a single word and what must have been a difficult technical effect being done quite seamlessly.