Handë (Hands). 1928. Germany. Directed by Stella Simon, Miklos Bandy. 35mm. German intertitles. 13 min.
Mrs. Simon, the New York photographer who made the present picture independently in Berlin, states it represents no more than an experiment which she carries out in order to discover for herself what could be achieved by treating the film as an abstract pattern in time and space. In a sense, Hands is a compromise between the purely abstract film and the realistic movie with a plot.”
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. 1927. USA. Directed by F. W. Murnau. Screenplay by Carl Mayer. With Janet Gaynor, George O’Brien, Jane Winton. 35mm. 94 min.
“Sunrise is both impressive and unequal. Few films begin more effectively. The dazzling glimpse of the railway station and the subsequent multiple shots suggest in brilliantly visual terms all the summertime gaiety of vacations and of resorts. Throughout the film the photography and lighting are masterly, and the sets unusually photogenic, except when they strive to reduplicate paintings. The tempo both of the acting and the cutting is well considered and, in the final sequence when the nemesis has belatedly overtake the here there is, in the present synchronized version of the film, a singularly apt use of music when the horns call with a prod found suggestion of loss and frustration across the dark waters of the lake.”