This is the first film from my German Cinema class. I will be watching at least one film a week, which works out beautifully for you guys. I think this is also the earliest film I've ever seen. It predates World War I.Balduin (Paul Wegener) is a student at the University of Prague. He has a reputation of being the best swordsman in the city but he's also known as a wild child, and is usually flat broke. An old man (John Gottowt) offers Balduin the opportunity to improve his fortunes by signing a contract with the Devil. The contract guarantees Balduin 100,000 gold pieces in exchange for whatever the Devil wants from Balduin's room. Seeing as he owns next to nothing, Balduin thinks this is a great deal. He hadn't considered that the Devil would take Balduin's reflection from the mirror and use it to create a doppelgänger.
The print we saw was terrible. Even the professor said so. Apparently, there's a much better copy on YouTube but the sub/intertitles are shit. I'm going to take her word for it. It's always interesting to see some of the earliest films, but I'm not going to lie, this was a struggle to watch. For whatever reason, I just couldn't connect to it visually even though I felt like I understood and appreciated the story.
Technically, this is considered a horror movie, though nothing about it would be considered horrifying today. Selling your soul to Satan just doesn't pack the same amount of punch as it used to, I guess. (**refraining from making a political joke**)
I'm surprised this hasn't been remade and done to death. I didn't know this movie is a thing. The concept alone almost seems to hit home for me, anyway. I'll keep an eye out for it.
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