Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans (Limited Edition) Yeech. For pity's sake, DON'T see this film colorized! I'm convinced that colorization is/was the bane of cinematography (especially when they got the woman's dress wrong from The Secret life of Walter Mitty).

Well, even if it's colorized DO see this film. It's a brilliant blend of humanistic realism and emotional surreality. Even rottentomatoes.com says it's worth it. They gave the film a completely earned 97% on the tomatometer.

Do you want to know what surprised me about silent films? I'm always surprised by the quality of the images. I have been used to watching things in snowy, fuzzy screens from bad cable connections, or degraded VHS. I always thought that the older the films were, the more degraded the images would be. I have so often been proven wrong, especially after groups like Criterion, who restore these old films and put them on DVD. I watch these movies and think, "they look like real people!" instead of vague, humanoid, painted masks. Really old movies, pre-'25, are still pretty blurry, but by the thirties, they all start to look wonderful, at least in parts.

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