The film is a masterpiece of German Expressionism, with the theater's "act" as the subsection between paragraphs.
In the first act, Francis, a young man, tells a story to an old man under a jack-o-lantern on Halloween, telling the story of a Dr. Caligari.
From the second act is the garden party scene, Dr. Caligari shows the sleepwalker Caesar at the garden party, Caesar has been kept in Dr. Caligari's cabin, we can see Dr. Caligari instigating Caesar to go He did a lot of bad things, and the Doctor used the exact same doll as Caesar to get rid of the suspicion of Caesar's murder.
In the story, we can see that Francis traced to a mental hospital, and the director of the mental hospital was Dr. Caligari, and with the diary written by Dr. Caligari as evidence, Dr. Caligari was captured.
In this scene, the exaggerated and bizarre shapes and makeup of the characters, the asymmetrical composition design, and the music that is just right to render the horror atmosphere make the whole film present a dark and terrifying atmosphere. Especially the scene of Caesar waking up from the coffin at the garden party is a classic.
And at the end of the film, the young Francis returns to the mental hospital, and we know that everyone in the story told by the young man is a patient in the hospital and Dr. Caligari is also a kind dean, and the real sick person is young people themselves.
This reversal is undoubtedly unexpected, and further sublimates the theme of the film.
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