Fritz Lang - 1944 (based on a Grahame Greene novel)
Known as a pretty expressionist Lang film, this did some nice things. The opening is completely hillarious, with the indoor scene before the swooping shot outside where we found out this perfectly nice seeming man, presumably in prison or something, is leaving an asylum. This kind of atmosphere is enhanced by the attendant chaos of the cake, the bomb, and the village fete (which is also pretty dramatic, and taunting, with the blind man).
It is expressionist in that the shadows are long, it is dark, and there are the scenes, like at the seance, dramatically lit which move into non-diagetic imagery. I wouldn't make all too much of the expressionism, however.
We have familiar Langian themes of paranoia, shadowy systems of control, violence bubbling under, and confusion. We talk about Hitchcock and the 'wrong man', but we can equally talk about Lang. Mistaken identities and so on.
The wish for a quiet life, survival, also interests. As the end plays out, with the hillariously out of place (rather adding to the surreal Langian touches in fact) studio-added (presumably) last shot.
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