Todd Browning's "The Unknown" is full of typical features of 1920s movie shooting: a soft-style photograph with some light fabrics or filters in front of the lens. The gray lens language gives people a sense of visual comfort, and its classical narrative charm is strong. The general plot of the story is: the daughter of the circus leader is afraid of anyone's hands, but she trusts the protagonist Alonzo, who pretends to be armless. Later, Alonzo was worried that the fact that he had arms would be revealed, so he decided to intercept his arms. When he became disabled, he found that the woman he loved already had someone he liked. The story seems to be just a simple love tragedy, but after watching the film, we will have questions-why is the film called "the unknown"? What is the unknown? In the contact film, Alonzo's threats to the doctor when he went to perform amputations, the "twenty years ago" in their dialogue can understand the meaning of the title. Yes, the actor Alonzo is the "unknown", a character who was completely unknown to our audience in the past. Interesting thing, after watching this film, I unconsciously think of the classic film "Hands of Ola Ke" in German expressionism, which is also about "hands". In the 1920s, Germany experienced the disastrous defeat of World War I and the economic difficulties during the inflationary period. At that time, the scientific concept of "determinism" still prevailed. Perhaps the sense of panic in "Hands of Ola Ke" that "changing hands is changing thinking personality" was born based on this. The United States in the 1920s was just in the "Roaring Twenties", and its economic and cultural development was highly developed. It almost never rejected the culture of other countries. It has many advantages in one, so we can also see a little performance in "The Unknown". The shadow of ism. The Unknown is a rare film noir in the early days. Even if its script is placed today, it can still make a good film.
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