Country: USA
Released: September 23rd, 1927
Genre: Romance
Director: F.W. Murnau
Producer: William Fox
Writer: Carl Mayer
I feel guilty about writing about Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans because the fact of the matter is that I didn't really watch it. Sure I was sitting on the couch in front of my TV while it was playing but I honestly spent most of the film browsing Reddit on my phone than actually paying attention. Perhaps that already say enough about the movie, but I can't help but feel that the fault lies less with it than with me, like I just wasn't in the mood for a movie today... actually come to think of it even if I had been the plot still would have been boring as shit, so fuck it.
Sunrise is a love story. That's it. Have you ever watched a movie like The Notebook and think, "this is nice and all but I wish it was literally just an hour of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams flirting with each other with no overarching plot or conflict"? Then Sunrise is for you. Also please avoid leaving your house and forcing society to interact with you, you weird-o.
The film follows The Man (George O'Brien) and The Wife (Janet Gayner) as they... wait are those really their character names? Are you for real, movie? What... why? Were you really too lazy to crap out a pair of names like Jon and Jane? Seriously? Anyways it follows The Man and The Wife as they rekindle their love for one another after The Man attempted to murder The Wife and made everything "awkwaaaard" for everyone.
No seriously, that's the plot. Don't believe me? Watch the movie for yourself, asshole. This is literally the plot of the movie. The Man is seduced by a home-wrecker called The Woman From the City (guess where she comes from), played by Margaret Livingston, who tries to convince him of the wonders of the city (that's where she's from, by the way). She does this by performing a dance that makes the Android from Metropolis look like Baryshnikov. Did people in 1927 just not know what dancing was? Is that it? I can only assume because when The Woman From the City dances she looks fucking retarded. I'm sorry, I don't have a clever analogy for this one, she just looks retarded. And not in a mental-disability kind of way, that would be offensive. She just... I don't know, the word just feels right.
But I'm getting off track. She convinces The Man to kill his wife, and like a total freaking putz he actually tries. Our hero, everybody! In any case he's just about to do it when he has a change of heart. She flees and he chases after her, because when a young women is terrified of me I also run after her screaming that I'm not a threat. He literally yells, "don't be afraid of me!" to her face in one of the most unintentionally funny moments of any movie I've seen. Somehow he convinces her of the error of his ways and after crashing a wedding they decide to rekindle their love. What follows is an hour of them flirting, and... how best to describe this? You know those really obnoxious teenage couples on the bus or the metro that just spend the whole ride kissing and flirting and being absolutely insufferable about their relationship? Imagine watching that for an hour. Congrats, you just visualized the entire second act of Sunrise. It's an hour of them getting their hair done, going to a restaurant, getting a picture and... oh hey there J.K. Simmons!
And as perfunctory as the scene is, this shot for when they're at the carnival is impressive.
Also there is a drunken piglet.
...
That's not a euphemism for anything, there is a drunken piglet in this movie.
Now I'm a little conflicted about this. On the one hand they clearly took a baby pig and fed it alcohol in an example of the kind of gross animal abuse the twenties thought was endearing, but on the other hand it is god dammed cute! Seriously, watching this baby pig stumble around is adorably tragic.
Drunken pigs aside however this movie isn't very good. Maybe it's because my perception is skewed on account of watching nothing but the best films ever put to screen for the last week, but I didn't like it. The second half is a wasteland as far as the plot is concerned, and most damningly the love story, the centerpiece of the movie, is not at all that compelling outside of the attempted murder scene I described above. The romance in The Big Parade is far more interesting. Also, and this is a minor point, but calling a generic love story "A Song of Two Human" is pretentious as hell.
What ultimately kills the movie though is that I just couldn't take it seriously. The idea that The Wife forgives this guy after he tries to murder her is plain stupid, and once that shattered my suspension of disbelief I spent the whole film just kind of making fun of it.
So yeah, not the best movie. Ah well, here's hoping The Unknown dazzles me a bit more.
Released: September 23rd, 1927
Genre: Romance
Director: F.W. Murnau
Producer: William Fox
Writer: Carl Mayer
I feel guilty about writing about Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans because the fact of the matter is that I didn't really watch it. Sure I was sitting on the couch in front of my TV while it was playing but I honestly spent most of the film browsing Reddit on my phone than actually paying attention. Perhaps that already say enough about the movie, but I can't help but feel that the fault lies less with it than with me, like I just wasn't in the mood for a movie today... actually come to think of it even if I had been the plot still would have been boring as shit, so fuck it.
Sunrise is a love story. That's it. Have you ever watched a movie like The Notebook and think, "this is nice and all but I wish it was literally just an hour of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams flirting with each other with no overarching plot or conflict"? Then Sunrise is for you. Also please avoid leaving your house and forcing society to interact with you, you weird-o.
The film follows The Man (George O'Brien) and The Wife (Janet Gayner) as they... wait are those really their character names? Are you for real, movie? What... why? Were you really too lazy to crap out a pair of names like Jon and Jane? Seriously? Anyways it follows The Man and The Wife as they rekindle their love for one another after The Man attempted to murder The Wife and made everything "awkwaaaard" for everyone.
No seriously, that's the plot. Don't believe me? Watch the movie for yourself, asshole. This is literally the plot of the movie. The Man is seduced by a home-wrecker called The Woman From the City (guess where she comes from), played by Margaret Livingston, who tries to convince him of the wonders of the city (that's where she's from, by the way). She does this by performing a dance that makes the Android from Metropolis look like Baryshnikov. Did people in 1927 just not know what dancing was? Is that it? I can only assume because when The Woman From the City dances she looks fucking retarded. I'm sorry, I don't have a clever analogy for this one, she just looks retarded. And not in a mental-disability kind of way, that would be offensive. She just... I don't know, the word just feels right.
But I'm getting off track. She convinces The Man to kill his wife, and like a total freaking putz he actually tries. Our hero, everybody! In any case he's just about to do it when he has a change of heart. She flees and he chases after her, because when a young women is terrified of me I also run after her screaming that I'm not a threat. He literally yells, "don't be afraid of me!" to her face in one of the most unintentionally funny moments of any movie I've seen. Somehow he convinces her of the error of his ways and after crashing a wedding they decide to rekindle their love. What follows is an hour of them flirting, and... how best to describe this? You know those really obnoxious teenage couples on the bus or the metro that just spend the whole ride kissing and flirting and being absolutely insufferable about their relationship? Imagine watching that for an hour. Congrats, you just visualized the entire second act of Sunrise. It's an hour of them getting their hair done, going to a restaurant, getting a picture and... oh hey there J.K. Simmons!
The movie ends when a storm ironically nearly drowns The Wife, sending The Man into a murderous rampage wherein he tries strangling The Woman From the City (I reiterate: our hero, everybody!). Fortunately they find The Wife alive just in time to stop his murder, and everyone lives happily ever after, brushing aside his many attempted murders.
Now don't get me wrong, there are some things that I like about the movie. For example the scene where The Man is leading his wife to the boat to murder her is absolutely stomach-wrenching. She gets to the boat all chipper and happy because their relationship has been on the fritz and she sees this as a chance to rekindle it; she even puts on her best dress! Meanwhile he looks morose, like... well like a guy who's about to commit murder. The contrast was effective and it was honestly the most tension I've felt from any movie on the list so far. The way her smile gradually fades as she realizes something is wrong had me biting my nails.
Many of the effects are also pretty neat. For example when The Man is grappling with his lust for his lover they use a fade effect by superimposing footage to show that her presence is felt even when she's not in the room.
Also there is a drunken piglet.
...
That's not a euphemism for anything, there is a drunken piglet in this movie.
Now I'm a little conflicted about this. On the one hand they clearly took a baby pig and fed it alcohol in an example of the kind of gross animal abuse the twenties thought was endearing, but on the other hand it is god dammed cute! Seriously, watching this baby pig stumble around is adorably tragic.
Drunken pigs aside however this movie isn't very good. Maybe it's because my perception is skewed on account of watching nothing but the best films ever put to screen for the last week, but I didn't like it. The second half is a wasteland as far as the plot is concerned, and most damningly the love story, the centerpiece of the movie, is not at all that compelling outside of the attempted murder scene I described above. The romance in The Big Parade is far more interesting. Also, and this is a minor point, but calling a generic love story "A Song of Two Human" is pretentious as hell.
What ultimately kills the movie though is that I just couldn't take it seriously. The idea that The Wife forgives this guy after he tries to murder her is plain stupid, and once that shattered my suspension of disbelief I spent the whole film just kind of making fun of it.
"Duuuuuuuuuuuh"
No comments:
Post a Comment