Das indische Grabmal - Blu-ray

I knew the Fritz Lang remake from the early fifties, which I thought was a bit bland. Then I bought this blu-ray edition of the original film by Joe May, and I was stunned by its hypnotic power. I enjoyed every minute of this gorgeous film from 1921. The image quality is good, the movie is striking. Buy with the greatest confidence.

This is a film of two parts - literally. In the first part, an Indian prince (Conrad Veidt) wakes a great yogi from a trance and commands him to bring him an architect to build a tomb for the Prince's wife. This architect lives in 'London' and is engaged to be married. This first part of the film is over two hours long. By the end of it the architect is in the Prince's palace and so is the fiancee, having followed him there. Also there is the Prince's wife, the Princess, as one minor detail that the Prince had omitted from his message to the architect was that the woman whose tomb he is to build is still alive. She is to be entombed there with her lover, as the Prince has found out she has been cheating on him. The lover is under siege by the Prince's minions elsewhere.In part two, everyone who is going to die, does so. This second part is about ten minutes short of two hours, so the whole thing works out at four hours long. I can only think that the film makers spent so much money on the Indian Palace set, costumes and real tigers that they were determined to get their money's worth out of them. Speaking of costumes, some of the ideas about what an Indian Princess might wear are truly bizarre!Much of the acting is very 'theatrical'. Lots of exaggerated gestures, looks of 'pathos' and fainting. On the other hand, Conrad Veidt is marvellous and looks marvellous. He alone manages a cinematic rather than 'theatrical' style of acting. Of course it's a much more expressionistic style of acting than we'd use now but it suits the role and is to some extent inevitable in a silent film. You genuinely believe in his pain, his love, his rage, his jealousy and he conveys subtler things too - you sense for instance that he understands the doomed path that his unforgiving vengeance his leading him on. There is also one spectacularly strange and wonderful sequence where he emerges from a temple clothed as a god, looking disturbingly androgynous.Three other general points: (1) It’s a German blu-Ray and all the intertitles are in German. There are no English subtitles. (2) It's a beautiful restoration. Top marks to the people who worked on it. (3) The soundtrack takes a little getting used to. It is sort of Classical but with an underlying drone which i suppose is meant to represent the Indian setting.

Bisher war dieser Film ein Gerücht, eine Anekdote, weil Fritz lang ihn nicht drehen (und dann Jahrzehnte später doch noch einmal eine Version gedreht hat). Hier ist das Original von Joe May, und wenn man die Blu-ray gesehen hat, weiß man, wie viel Fritz Lang von Joe May gelernt hat: alles.

This is a classic film which I really enjoyed. German subtitles only which is a pity, but the film looks wonderful. Only the ghastly music, specially composed, lets the side down

Ich habe mir - trotz einiger Bedenken - alle drei Versionen des "Indischen Grabmals/Tiger von Eschnapur" gegönnt. Natürlich haben die drei Versionen Gemeinsamkeiten, aber nicht so viele, dass das Ansehen langweilig würde - wenn, ja wenn - man nichts gegen Schwarzweiß- oder gar Stumm-Filme hat. Die optische Opulenz der 1959er Version mit Paul Hubschmid und Debra Paget können die frühen Versionen beide nicht erreichen, letztere punkten aber jeweils mit einer etwas breiteren Story.Bei dieser Version hier meine ich auch zu merken, dass sich der damalige Kinofilm sich noch nicht so ganz von Schema von Theatervorstellungen hatte lösen können, obwohl er aus damaliger Sicht wohl eher als "Action Reißer" durchging. Aus heutiger Sicht muß er natürlich 'gemächllich' wirken, aber nicht als langweilig.Also: Empfehlung, wenn man mit den genannten Eigenarten leben kann.