i'm just now finishing Dr. Caligari, so sorry for the lateness. Off the bat to have chosen a film nearly a century old is a cool choice and speaking for myself at least, would have been something I'd have never found more than likely. so, the music itself feels like a symphony of emotion, building, dipping, and pushing you along through to the end of the story. It's haunting and at the same time, more so early on, very moving. The set decoration, the strange backdrops representing a city and the odd hallways used throughout are also very artistic, like Salvador Dolly pictures people are moving through. The part where Cesare carries the young woman across the rooftops was a satisfying example of that for me.
Then, the story, just the right kind of suspenseful yarn that could succeed today and was well beyond it's time in crafting a narrative, it starts slow but drags you in from the peculiarness of it all. All the white powdered makeup on the characters totally makes this feel not real, but creepy nonetheless because real people are living amongst them as the story moves on. The Director/ Caligari twist was unexpected to say the least and the final shot of his face is unsettling in such a subtle way, I don't even think any current director would have the restraint enough to leave it as is.
It's not the kind of film I personally would give many repeat viewings but the creativity it took to film this and create it and make it a unique world for all time in film for many people to revisit is quite an achievement and for a group of young people to be rewatching this movie 90 years later with all the technology at our fingertips is no small goal i would think the director and staff would be extremely proud of.
Glad you liked it. The scenery of the movie is made to convey insanity. That was one of the sole tip offs to the psychological state of the man in the beginning. Many years later we've seen such a twist done so many times it has gotten a little stale.
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