# 187 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a movie about a "city woman" who tempts a married farmer and convinces him to murder his wife, sell the farm and move to the city with her. The man invites his wife to go on a boat trip, and, as he is about to throw her overboard and make it look like an accident, the wife starts to understand what's going on, and the farmer realizes that he can't do it.

The movie didn't impress me that much. Actually, the only thing I found impressing was the score. The plot was banal, I can't see any of this happening in real life. I think much of it derived from Theodore Dreiser's American Tragedy, but the idea behind the movie is very shallow. I can understand how many couples go through problems, even infidelity, but still end up growing old happily together. But no woman in her right mind would ever make up with a husband who had plotted to murder her.

I believe that, if asked, a lot of people would say they love the movie for being technically perfect, and may be it is so, it's really hard for me to judge. I did, however, notice the heavy use of special effects, a good example of which you can see on the image I've chosen for this post. Without giving too much away, I'll say that the ending was a case of "be careful what you wish for". If you like classic silent films with fable morality, you might as well like this one, but to me it seemed too artificial, and lacked the complexity of real-life situations.

PS: May my followers forgive me for not posting as often as I used to. We're in the process of moving to a new place, so I don't have much free time. This is also the reason why I don't reply to some of the comments or read other people's blogs. I promise to catch up once everything is over though!

Interesting fact: F.W. Murnau hated using title cards in his films. Thus, in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), the title cards become more and more infrequent as the film progresses and virtually non-existent by the end.