Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans

This famous work (1927) from F.W. Murnau is amazing to see; an exciting and surprisingly violent (tonally) silent film, full of lessons in the making of the film, of storytelling, how you can put content together, and the changing fashions.
The opening of this film uses very clear stereotypes of good and evil. Murnau uses similar techniques to what he did in 'Nosferatu', with the use of shade on the faces of )every) evil charatcer, and those lurching backs.
It is next to unbelievable that our hero, at one point, attempts to murder his wife. This shows a different in gender relations, no doubt, but also shows a shift in the kinf of realism; for an early master like Murnau, cinema is more clearly seen as a kind of fantasia, a dream, where the usual rules don't apply.
The seamless but, from modern perspectives, odd shoft to the city represents a particular high moment. There are a number of great technical issues of lighting and focus in how Murnau shoots the whole wide city. We don't know directors before Murnau who used cuts so often, manipulating and falsifying space on occassion, to create, again, a dream world.
This story is told in a wonderful tight manner. It is simple enough to induce real emotional power in the viewer. We have been blessed to see another example of the greatness of cinema, a perfection of its type.