DAS KABINETT DES DOKTOR CALIGARI (1920) **1/2 Hermann Warm's sets are incredible, just lush and beautiful, colourful-even in black and white. Maybe especially in black and white, even De Luxe has nothing on a good imagination. They're painted, soft paintings of landscapes and carnivals with the feel of ocean waves beneath them...this sort of thing should be done more often. Robert Wiene runs a plot so simple, yet bursting to the point of near explosion with nuance, that I admit to getting hopelessly confused. Hypnotic events can do that, you know, and the layering may be representative of the physiology of your own brain! How about that? I immediately liked Werner Krauss, which may explain some of my confusion, but ultimately we're back to the same old question: What if it is the asylum-dwellers who are sane? Did the world imagine Descartes, or did Descartes imagine the world? If it's all mine anyway, why couldn't I have gravy with my biscuit? The good part is that hypnotic confusion is essentially a pleasant sensation.
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