The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

For wonderful expressionist films during the silent era we look across the pond to Europe. Here we find a German film where many things could have gone wrong, but so many right people and with the right touches came together to create a rather marvelous film that can be seem as being before its time.

The idea for this film was said to come to the writer, Hans Jonawitz's mind when he went to the carnival one day and saw a shadowy figure of a man that disappeared into the darkness, the next day he would hear the news of a girl brutally murdered, Hans went to the funeral and there was this mysterious man lurking around again. From this experience Jonawitz concocted a story of mysterious murders and mysterious men at a carnival.

We follow the lead character, Francs as he visits a fanciful carnival where he sees the sideshow of one Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), a kind of comatose man that the doctor can control. The doctor tells his audience that Cesare can predict the future, telling Francis' friend that he will die that night, which is turns out to be true. Francis and his fiancée, Jane, go out to investigate, which leads to Jane being kidnapped by Cesare and Cesare being chased by townsfolk, leading to Cesare falling to his death. Francis discovers that the doctor works at an insane asylum and is obsessed with the tale of a monk named "Caligari" who in the early 11th century used a somnambulist to murder people in a traveling act as well. After this is revealed , Caligari would be imprisoned in his own asylum.

But there is a twist ending! Francis is telling this story from an insane asylum, which he is a patient of. He, Jane, and Cesare are all patients and the doctor of the asylum is the man he calls "Caligari" in his story. After the doctor hears this story he says that he knows how to cure Francis of his delusion. And with that, the film ends.

The film has a wonderful twist ending that gives the same feeling as watching a good Twilight Zone episode, and with movies of this time it felt very refreshing to see such a ending. The picture as a whole is very stylistic, with its impressionistic set pieces and art, being stylized , angled painted flat sets, rather then actual set pieces. Also the shadows used in the film were painted as the set lighting is very flat. This was done for a two-fold reason, for style purposes and the very low production budget so everything was done on the cheap, but the styling was very well used for this story, giving a feeling of things not being right, a sort of dream-like state.
Famous German director Fritz Lang was close to being the one to make this film, but eventually it was passed to Robert Wiene, which I think was fine as Lang would have made perhaps a very different picture, as we would later see Lang styling in Metropolis (1927).

Caligari would go on to influence many more horror films, future art, and styles for many generations to come, including a remake 85 years later. The film was very European and very cutting edge for its time. It feels very fresh, even watching it to this day. To tell the whole story in flashback and then change the whole perception of what you just watched at the very end of the picture shows how European films played more with the psychological side of audience, rather than the wowing the audience with large sets and lavish glamor as American pictures at that time seemed to put out. You can't help but see how this film influences European styles, horror films, and impressionism in films for years to come.