Visual poetry in its purest form, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a transcendent experience, a film which beautifully encapsulates the vast lexicon of human emotions through its tale of a husband and wife. A story full of dichotomy, Sunrise is the story of a rural farmer, whose life becomes on the verge of collapsing after a steamy affair begins with a vacationing woman from the city. Pleading for the farmer to leave his simple life behind him, this mysterious urban woman suggests that the farmer drowns his wife, and while the farmer reluctantly agrees in the passion of the moment, when the time comes he is unable to go through with the heinous deed. With his wife now shaken to the bones by her husband's near act of lustful violence, the farmer desperately begs for his wife's forgiveness, which he eventually receives on their arrival in the city, setting off a day of renewed passion and vigor in the big city. Later that night, storm clouds offer another test to this couple, when they find themselves stranded on a boat in the middle of the water with a violent storm which threatens both their lives. Beautifully exhibiting the wide array of human emotion, Sunrise encapsulates the grand, diverse canvas that is the human condition through its simple morality tale. Allegorical in nature, we find this simple farmer wrestling with the good and evil which exists within himself, grappling with the coercive emotions and the emotional dichotomy of his actions. Betrayal and redemption, love and lust, innocence and guilt, the dichotomy of such grand traits of the human condition are all explored with poetic grace, with Sunshine detailing a man in this farmer who finds himself reinvigorated by his love for his wife and the sense of commitment he has to both her and her family, with perhaps the film's greatest truth being in its ability to capture how we are all imperfect creatures of emotion. I truly believe that a part of cinema died with the invention of sound, and F.W. Murnau's Sunrise illustrates this point, exhibiting the purity of the cinematic form through its ability to capture the vast and complex array of emotions through visual acumen. Sunrise has an inventive, impressionistic cinematic language exuding through every frame, the emotional turmoil often reflected in contrasts between light and dark photography, the use of interlacing of compositions, front projection, and superimposed imagery, all working together to create a visual feast which often exudes the inner-emotions of its characters. F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is poetry in motion, perhaps best described as a allegorical fable of morality and the forces between good and evil, using visionary direction as a way of delivering an affirmation of the power of human expression and the complexity of the human condition.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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