Tuesday September 6, 2011

The Golem- This is an odd one. While it works well as a companion piece to 'Caligari' (use of German Expressionism), the story of this one was not as compelling. I'm Jewish, so technically this film should be the better of the two. It's got Jewish folklore and a 'Frankenstein' clay man to boot, but there was something way slower in concept than in 'Caligari' and for that reason alone, I would go with that one over this. In fact, I really didn't know where this film was going until 3/4 of the way through, but the funny thing is that the first 3/4 was the better half of the movie. As soon as it gets to its point, I'm like, "Done." 'The Golem' has all the elements of a solid work, from its odd and comedic special effects and makeup, to the odd gestures of the characters (there's a sequence where a dude is totally getting to 2nd base with the female lead) and there's even a few surprising moments throughout, but somehow it still managed to push me toward the watch a few times. I'm not saying it's bad. It certainly has its artistic and religious merits. Overall, the biggest fault I had with it was that every so often, I would claim "Oh, that's interesting, I wonder if they will go there with it… and nope they didn't". It's like, I saw a better movie within it that it just couldn't live up to.



- Jeff Bassin