Director Robert Wiene seems to merge visual art, theatre and film, thus creating a fantastical world suspended between reality and the otherworld.

Tim Burton is one of America’s contemporary auteurs—he creates fantastical and imaginative films. But Burton’s visions are not entirely original. Like most artists, he has been influenced by art of the past, consciously or otherwise.

But this column is not about Tim Burton. It is about a 1919 silent film called “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” The reason I brought Burton up is because “Caligari” is a German Expressionist film, an artistic movement that has heavily influenced Burton, as evident in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Sweeney Todd,” just to name a few.

The most striking feature of this film is its sets. They are grotesque and elaborate, as well as one-dimensional and artificial. “Caligari” is not interested in reality, though. Walls tilt at unnatural angles, buildings seem to defy the logics of gravity. The whole world is precariously perched on the edge of madness. Each set is a work of art in itself.

German expressionism is about subjectivity, about the inner reality rather than its exterior. The art movement came out of a period of great unrest in Germany, between WWI and WWII. Germany as a country was left in shambles, waiting for an animated dictator to unite the country in Nazi nationalism.

Director Robert Wiene seems to merge visual art, theatre and film, thus creating a fantastical world suspended between reality and the otherworld.

Considering its age, “Caligari’s” production values are astonishing. The film takes on colors through clever tinting, turning this mythical world shades of browns, teals, and lavenders. The inter titles are hand-lettered in an irregular, child-like font.

Dr. Caligari is side-show vagabond, taking Cesare the Somnambulist from town to town, exploiting him for willing patrons. The story is told from the perspective of an insane asylum inmate to his psychiatrist. Mysterious murders start happening in his town Holstenwall: citizens stabbed in the night. One such murder, of Mr. Alan, occurs after the Somnambulist prophesies his death.

His friend Francis is distraught and becomes obsessed with finding the murderer. The next night, however, a man is caught outside a woman’s house carrying a knife. He is arrested and all seems to return to normal in the small village. That is until Jane, the love interest of both Alan and Francis, is kidnapped. She escapes and recounts to her father and Francis that her kidnapper is none other than Cesare. When the police go to investigate, they do not find Cesare asleep in his coffin-like box, but rather a dummy in his place. Francis goes searching for the doctor, and finds him in an insane asylum, but he is not a patient—he is the director.

At this point the film turns over on itself. One moment it leads you to believe that Francis is telling the truth and the hospital director really is the malicious Dr. Caligari, who, through the use of hypnosis, used the Somnambulist to commit brutal murders. The next moment, Francis is clearly the crazy one (after all, we discover over the course of the film, he is the patient in the film’s opening).

What we are left with then, when the iris closes in on the face of hospital director/Dr. Caligari is that we can never be too sure of anything. After all, the crazy person always thinks that he is the sanest of them all.

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