Destiny (1921)

  As many of you know, or have guessed by now, I am going to college.  Next semester (which actually starts in less than a month) for my last elective, I am taking German Cinema.  I was trying to get into the Horror Cinema class but that was waitlisted for like 1000 years.  I have no idea what we'll be covering in the class but I don't imagine we'll leave out Fritz Lang.  Serendipitously, I had added one of his films to my queue ages ago and started watching it on vacation.  I finally had time to finish it yesterday.

A young woman (Lil Dagover) is on vacation with her sweetheart (Walter Janssen) when he is stolen away by Death (Bernhard Goetzke).  The young woman begs Death to return her love and he offers her a chance to get him back if she could prevent the death of even one of three young men sharing the same fate.  So the woman steps in to three separate stories to try and save at least one iteration of the man she loves.

In 1921, these special effects must have been astonishing.  Even by today's standards, the storytelling is excellent.  Each mini-story is brought to life by beautiful costuming and sets for Turkey, Venice, and China, and while it is a little weird to see German actors playing Turkish and Chinese characters, you just kind of roll with it.

I haven't seen any movies featuring Death as a character in a long time, but folklore abounds with tales like this one.  Death could be pleaded with, bargained with, occasionally cheated, and sometimes he even took a vacation.  It's nice to go back and look at the representations of life's final mystery through the eyes of different cultures.