Monday, February 09, 2009

#82: Sunrise, A Song of Two Humans (1927)


In the quest to be a high-ranking white person, it is important to claim that you want to one day use your Netflix to go through the AFI Top 100. It lets other people know you care about good movies, without actually having to labor through all the difficult films to watch on the list.

It is not important to attempt this feat, only to say that you want to. If you do wind up watching these movies, you get stuck being surprised by a 1927 silent film. The story is at least interesting, the emotions well-conveyed, but nonetheless it is a silent film. Provided you actually continue watching beyond the first minute or two, you realize that half of the movie is a total downer and the other half is full of la-la happy times. It's a remarkable feat for 1927, probably one of the first movies to use wide shots, such as at the carnival, but it's not something that begs the 21st century Netflix enthusiast to take interest. I had a good time with it, but wouldn't have chosen it and will probably never watch it again.

Oh Gawd, I have to break into the unholy trilogy and watch Titanic next.

1 Comments:

Blogger Josh said...

I have to disagree with you on this one. Yes, it's surprising that this silent film is actually good (for a silent film), but I think it's a tremendous movie, silent or not.

With the lack of dialogue, this movie had to use visuals to convey thoughts and emotions more than a "talkie" would, and I personally think it's one of the best films in history to do it this well.

I respect your opinion, and I'm glad you at least enjoyed "Sunrise" more than you expected to.

March 5, 2010 at 5:53 PM  

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