Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans

Year: 1926

Grade: A-

Country: USA

Director: Murnau

Review

murnau’s moving up quickly in my book these days. this is the somewhat expressionistically told story of a love triangle: a man, his mistress from the city, and his farmer wife. the mistress wife seeks to convince the man to run away with her to the city after killing his wife. the man (as he is credited) takes his wife on a row boat in the middle of a lake with the intention of throwing her overboard, but isn’t able to bring himself to do it. she becomes extremely afraid of him and runs away once they reach land, and he pursues her in order to convince her that his wicked intentions have passed. trying to explain the range of emotions that the characters (and audience) experience over the course of the film through plot recollection or any other means is somewhat futile. suffice it to say that this silent film, with very few intertitles, blew me away after this, my first, viewing. it’s very rare that i give any film that is new to me a grade higher than a B+, but this one deserves that rare distinction. everyone’s acting is expressionistic, but not overly so. o’brien and gaynor are both radiant in their happiness and truly bleak in their depression. murnau’s falsely happy ending in the last laugh and somber conclusion in tabu made me think i knew where this film was going, but i was (thankfully) wrong. great film. a must see.

Watched on TV