Robert Wiene's The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari

Generally regarded as the first film in the horror thriller genre, Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is unlike any other film I've seen, mostly because I've not seen too many German Expressionist films. However, being familiar with many artworks from that period, the style of the film clearly follows designer Hermann Warm's claim that “The film image must become graphic art.”1

As a modern film viewer, the unreliable narrator plot seemed tired and didn't really surprise me all too much. However, understanding that it is a film from the 1920s, the time the narrative frame, being told entirely in flashbacks, and the twist that Francis is actually crazy, would have been very unlike other films of the time. While most films for the 1920s usually followed a linear form, I suspect (although it's obviously hard to say for certain) that the dislocated-in-time narrative may have heightened the sense of confusion, and therefore horror, Wiene was trying to convey through his film.

As written by Bordwell and Thompson, “German Expressionism depends heavily on mise-en-scene”. Especially in the case of Dr. Caligari, I believe it was crucial to the entire meaning of the film. The first thing I definitely noticed was the film's bizarre look, the distorted buildings in the town of Hostenwall, the jerky unrealistic, and dancelike movements of the actors, distorted and exaggerated shapes, and the theatrical feel of the painted on canvas backdrops canted at odd angles, all key elements of German Expressionism in film. The film didn't feel natural and, in a way, definitely hinted at the twist ending as there is no doubt that throughout the entire film there is something that just isn't right about it