Horrorfest 2011: Faust

Let's head back to Germany for FAUST, the first silent film of Horrorfest 2011. This is another film from F.W. Murnau, who directed SUNRISE from Romancefest 2011 and, more importantly, NOSFERATU -- perhaps the greatest horror film of them all.

FAUST stars Emil Jannings as Mephisto, a chief demonic agent of Satan (or maybe Satan himself, I'm a little unclear on this) who makes a wager with an archangel (Werner Fuetterer) that he can turn an otherwise pious man against God. An alchemist named Faust (Gosta Ekman) is the human who becomes the center of this bet. Faust is a seemingly wise, aged scholar who is struggling to save the people of his village from a plague brought by Mephisto. He uses both prayer and his knowledge of alchemy in an attempt to develop a cure, but finds both methods are useless and, in a fit of rage and desperation, renounces God while burning both his science books and his holy scriptures.

Faust eventually summons Mephisto at a crossroads, and Mephisto makes a deal with Faust -- Faust can sign a one day contract with Mephisto for unlimited power and glory in exchange for renouncing God and praising Satan. If he's not into it after one day, the contract is over. If he wants to continue, he belongs to Mephisto for life. Sounds simple enough, but of course, Mephisto has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, first giving Faust the ability to cure the sick people in his village, and following that up with the promise to give Faust youth and offers to let Faust live a life of pleasure that he never got to experience the first time around. The clock's ticking and Faust has to decide -- go back to being an old man, or have everything in life he missed out on the first time.

Anyway, I don't want to go too much more into the plot because this is one of those "one damn thing after another" movies -- every time you think the plot is going one way, something else comes up and the movie changes its course. Suffice it to say that Faust's deal with Mephisto eventually comes into conflict with Faust's attempts at true love and happiness with the beautiful and innocent small town girl Gretchen (Camilla Horn).

As with all of Murnau's movies, the great stuff here does not really concern the story. The story is just an excuse to create mind bending special effects and awesome images. Thanks to the fantasy and horror elements, Murnau is able to go overboard with all kinds of crazy in-camera special effects involving multiple exposures, miniature models, and menacing costumes. The special effects are wide-ranging. We have an early shot of some apocalyptic horsemen, an image of Mephisto towering over the small village and enveloping it with his wings, a scene in which a contract seems to write itself in fire right before our eyes, a creepy negative shot (I think) of Mephisto while he transforms Faust into a young man using black magic, and an endless shot of Mephisto and Faust flying by fields, mountains and villages as they travel the Earth.

Similarly to NOSFERATU, which famously starred Max Schreck as possibly the most revolting and creepy vampire ever put on screen, Murnau gets a lot of mileage out of casting the right guy as Mephisto. Emil Jannings isn't as outright horrifing as Schreck is in NOSFERATU, but he does perfectly encapsulate the slimy nature of the double-dealing devil. He has three distinct looks in the movie -- as a towering demon, an old man, and a younger gentleman. The "younger gentleman" look is totally sordid, with his black, slicked back hair, pasty face and awkwardly fitting cape. In fact, Mephisto looks enough like Lugosi's Dracula in a couple shots that I wonder if this was a direct inspiration on the later Universal classic?

Like most silent films, a modern viewer, whether well versed in film history or not, should probably adjust his or her expectations before sitting down to watch FAUST. After all, the movie is 85 years old, and a lot of stuff has changed in those 85 years. Still, the images alone make FAUST as cutting edge now as it was in its day.