Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) This is "Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination" or "Warning Shadows" and this film takes a path that many silent films back then. Include an ounce of horror, mystery, maybe even fantasy and hope the audience will be scared. Well.. maybe back then they were, but today this film that runs for slightly under 85 minutes did almost nothing for me. The usual problem is present again: not enough subtitles. If we don't understand what is going on, we lose interest and don't care about the story or characters. I really wonder why so few directors included a sufficient amount of subtitles during the silent film era. I guess there is a reason why nobody knows Arthur Robison today anymore, the writer and director of this German movie here. Another problem is overacting. Especially, the male protagonist who is also in the last scene really needed a lesson in subtlety. So yeah, a weak film with regard to basically everything: story, acting and directing. I do not recommend this over 90-year-old film. Not dramatic, not entertaining and especially not scary. Thumbs down.

sean4554 "Warning Shadows" shouldn't work as well as it does. There are no titles, causing the plot to be confusing if not closely paid attention to; the Expressionistic elements are abundant but also strangely removed in style; the acting is often tongue-in-cheek, and the overall artiness is seemingly self-conscious. However, those same elements also contribute to this film's majesty and originality. There is simply no other film (that I'm aware of, anyway) that approaches the beauty and sheer erotic oddness of this obscure classic. I cannot adequately describe exactly what it is that makes "Warning Shadows" one of my all-time favorite motion pictures, so...just see it. It's available on DVD from our great friends at Kino.

John W Chance To enjoy this film -- and you can -- accept the fact that the characters take their time in expressing themselves in mostly slow, but sometimes abrupt motions. Give up the idea of "Get on with it!" and accept the slow pace. It's worth it; just let yourself be drawn into a world of shadows, dreams and mesmerism.At a dinner party, a shadow player entertains a count, his flirtatious wife, and four of her admirers. He appears to entrance them into a weird dream in which the suddenly cuckolded husband has the three suitors kill his wife. This is enough of a spoiler, since you could probably guess watching it that something was going to happen to her because of her outlandish flirtations with those fawning over her (or perhaps, as another noted above, she was more in love with herself than with others). Finally, the party goers watch the ending of their dream on a screen in front of them, the curtains close over it, and they wake up. The husband and wife reunite, now deeply in love, seeing the folly of their past ways.What makes the film stand out are (surprise!) the extensive and creative use of shadows, the slightly bizarre story, which definitely cries out for a remake, and some outstanding camera work, even if this is the kind of German Expressionism Mike 'Deiter' Myers used to satirize on the 'Sprockets' segment on 'Saturday Night Live' in the 1990s.We don't get the herky-jerky motions so common in comedies of the teen years, or as seen in the great 'Intolerance' (1916), or the amazing 'Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1920), but we see more naturalistic (24 frames?) movement, even if it's all too stagy. It has a good, well fitting score. If you want good, fluid movements, with an interesting story and not very stagy acting, check out 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921) or any of so many other great films of the twenties.This one is innovative, ground breaking, enjoyable film making. I give it a 7.

psteier One of the most influential of the German Expressionist films of the 1920's. The most radical aspect is the lighting, where the shadows are sometimes more important than the actors. Also unusual is that there are no titles except at the start to introduce the characters, who are just types and do not have names, just descriptive titles (husband, wife, youth, servant, etc.). The shadow puppet show is similar to what is seen more extensively in Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, Die (1925).