DESTINY
(directed by Fritz Lang, 1920)
***** (out of 5)
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> The singular Fritz Lang directed this silent meditation on the poetic question: “Is love stronger than death?”
. When our heroine’s True Love is taken by an appropriately somber and mournful personification of Death, she refuses to accept the finality of his touch. After much tearful entreaty in a room full of tall burning candles, Death is touched by her devotion and suffering. He is weary of taking the blame for following God’s orders, so pointing to three candles, he explains they represent three individuals whose time is nearly up and vows that if she can save even one of these lives, he will reunite the separated lovers. She is transported to different situations around the globe, where she is a lover, trying to save her man from the final hand of fate- all three souls played by the actor who plays her dead lover, in an interesting device. She plots desperately to keep these men alive, but as he has since the dawn of man, Death always gets the final word.
– It is amazing to me that there are still so many classic silent films I’ve yet to see. Unfortunately, the great majority of them were lost to time, but what a vivid legacy remains of those early days of cinema!
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