When I watched this film, I thought of "The Lost Weekend" by Billy Wilder. The film was dedicated to telling the story of an alcoholic, the protagonist who never showed signs of "abstinence" from beginning to end. For the first time in the finale, it was decided not to drink alcohol - not so much a miracle as the power of capital changed this ending.
While many say that's a shortcoming of the film -- like the opening and finale it was added by Robert Vinay -- the film's existence is, in a sense, awe-inspiring.
Because of the historical significance of the film, there is no dispute about the scenery, modeling and so on. But the narrative, even though it is a one-line narrative, can also make people feel: "This film is not simple." This is definitely the same as Robert Venega. The beginning and the end of the above don't matter.
In Francis' world: Dean is obsessed with studying sleepwalkers, wants to incarnate himself as Dr. Caligari, and instructs sleepwalker Caesar to commit murders everywhere.
The Dean was the dictator, and Caesar was the poor man who was taken advantage of.
And in the dean's world: Francis mistook himself for Dr. Caligari and put everyone in the psychiatric hospital into the story.
Francis is a madman who takes it for granted, and everyone in the mental hospital is a "little character" in his imaginary story.
That is to say, no matter which of the two stories is the so-called "truth", there is a hidden control and being controlled. The controlling party can control some things and make some things change by his own words.
Under such circumstances, why the truth seems to be no longer important, and the important thing goes back to the appeal of expressionism: it does not describe objective reality, but only emphasizes people's subjective ideas and psychological feelings.
Dean has his own ideas, Francis has his own ideas... The film expresses the shock of two different ideas.
After adding the beginning and ending, although the accusation against the negative character of Dr. Caligari has been weakened, from the perspective of the film, the depiction of two different levels greatly enriches the entire film.
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