Review of Sunrise (1985) by Jake R — 07 Jun 2008

A soaring, overwhelming picture and an immense expression of joy and love, this is an amazing film. The plot could be summed up in a couple of words: couple fall out, go to the big city, fall in love again.

But it's the telling and the care in telling that makes it something special. This was F.W.Murnau's first American picture, after having built an impressive and already enormously influential repertoire of films in his homeland Germany, and was granted unlimited freedom, on shooting style, on content, on budget, even on where he could shoot it all.

And it shows, with his normally pessimistic German Expressionism transformed into a more optimistic contrasting of the shadows of temptation in first part of the film to the inevitable clearing of light with the sunrise at the end.

The performances are a matter of personal opinion, though one can't deny at points they are full of pure emotional power, especially Janet Gaynor's beautiful, broken-hearted Wife. But the film's main strength is its composition, not just visually but also in the film making itself.

The photography by Karl Freund creates a series of breathtaking images and unusual angles, whilst the film itself seems to take on an emotional response to the story, one minute suspiciously following the mystery vamp in an extraordinary tracking shot, the next literally melting with sorrow as the Man contemplates killing his wife.

This is an astounding and intensely beautiful film, a visual poem, pure emotion written into celluloid, an enormously rewarding and warming experience. Don't live without seeing this.