So, the man, being bored in the country with his boring farmwife, meets the exciting woman from the city while she is on vacation. Then, he cheats on his wife with her. They want to run away to the city together. The woman tells him to drown his wife.
So, the husband tells his wife that they are going on the lake. The wife is so excited to be noticed and to go out. It seems like he hasn't paid attention to her in a while. He goes to try and grab her to push her overboard, but can't do it. They reach the shore, and the wife, having realized what's going on, runs away in terror. The husband follows her and tries to apologize. He even goes and gets her a plate of sandwiches. She cries and her husband is like, "Don't be like that; look, I bought sandwiches!"
They witness a wedding nearby and the husband realizes how awful he's been to her. Not just the whole trying to drown her thing, but the ignoring and cheating on her. He begs her to forgive him, and she does. Then, they spend an enjoyable night on the town while involves getting pigs drunk.
When they return to the boat to go home, the weather is getting stormy. They fall out of the boat and the husband believes she is gone. But she's not. Once she is found, everyone is happy. The woman from the city silently goes back home and nothing happens to her. And the husband and wife and their baby (who appears from time to time) live happily ever after.
The story itself is simplistic, but I liked how the man and his wife interacted with each other. Like when they went in to get a portrait done and broke a statue. Their actions are just so natural, especially their facial expressions which help tell the story. This movie didn't need any talking, and it is surprising how much I didn't miss it. I will give this film an 8/10.
The scene where they are walking in the street, then in nature, then back in the street again was very memorable. To this day people speculate on how they did it because the "cars" passing between the camera and the couple actually reflect the buildings that aren't there since they are part of the dissolve.
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of scenes that I can't figure out how they did. And they didn't even need computers.
DeleteNice review. This is really a remarkable film. Did you notice how few intertitles there were? This was a style Murnau perfected and like you say the movie does not need any talking, the pictures do all the work
ReplyDeleteThank you. I don't like silent films because I have read all the dialogue so this film was ideal. I really liked it.
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