Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 9.0 | 20/34 | German Silent | Decades 7/8 | 1910s
Balduin is a poor university student but an expert swordsman. He befriends a weirdo dressed in black named Scapinelli.
He falls for a Countess after saving her from drowning. Without funds, he cannot approach her.
Scapinelli offers him a substantial sum for anything he sees in the room. He sees Balduin’s reflection and takes that, creating a dark doppelgänger of Balduin.
With money, Balduin pursues the Countess, but wherever he goes, so too does his mirror double.
I love how the staging of the opening introduces characters through a curtain pull. Each character gets their fighting game pose.
I watched the most complete version of this, which has two minutes missing and slowed down to compensate for under-cranking. They slowed it down too much. People move like they’re in space. It flows better at 1.5x.
This movie has such a cursed atmosphere. Its plot is threadbare, but its scenes with the double are unnerving. I enjoyed it!