Having been my first time watching a silent movie, I found the experience rather enlightening, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I surely wasn't expecting a very artistic rendition of an original story, the use of focus with the camera and film, the dramatic makeup and the twists in the story.
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari opens with a man telling another older gentleman the story of a series of murders and a nefarious Dr Caligari who controlled a somnambulist by the name of Cerare to kill people.
The story itself seems simple enough and the whole film seems easy enough to follow and then came the twists in the story, the truth revealed two or perhaps three times, leaving me completely amazed that I didn't see it coming, even more so that a silent film managed to render me amazed.
Perhaps the most recognisable aspect of this movie is the makeup and scenery, this film takes German Expressionism to another level, using abstract and bold scenery to express each landscape, choosing to dramatise makeup on characters and using theatrical gestures and expressions with the actors to express a mood, something used a lot as to express the mood in the silence of the film.
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