Sunrise

I think in some ways silent films can be considered a completely separate medium to film with sound, and I quite like watching silent films, to see how they play with the limitations not having sound places on them. So, I was quite looking forward to watching Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans, which is the first silent film on the list. It’s a fairly enjoyable film, and some of the visual effects it uses were surprising to me to be used in a film so early. Particularly the way that different images fade into each other, such as where the Man is day-dreaming about the Woman from the City being with him.

However, the plot of this film is very slight, and weirdly paced. In particular, the plot between the Man and the Woman from the City to kill the Wife appears to be resolved early the film. It does come back again at the end, but the middle sections is long, and while containing some scenes, such as the wedding and the dancing, that have lovely imagery and symbolism, there are other which seem fairly useless, such as when the pig gets loose at the fun fair, or when the couple break a statue at the photographer’s house. The film would end up being very short without these sections, but I think the parts of the plot that they convey - the renewed connection between the Man and the Wife - would be obvious without the point being belaboured.