Kerri Battles the AFI’s Top 100 – #82: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

I’ve been battling the AFI’s list since mid-May and, in that time, there have only been a rare few titles that didn’t sound even remotely familiar to me. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans falls into that category. I didn’t have a clue of what I was getting into this week, aside from the handful of deductions I could make from the fact that it was released in 1927: it would be silent and black and white. Beyond that, I presumed some kind of love story because of the subtitle. All of those facts turned out to be correct, but they still couldn’t have prepared me for the 94 minutes of WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK that I was about to view.

Our story begins in the summer of 1920-something, when everyone is on vacation in a small seaside town of God Knows Where. A Woman from the City (the character’s actual name) has lingered for weeks in said little haven, having a not-so-secret affair with The Man, who is married to The Wife. Woman from the City convinces The Man to murder his wife and make it look like she accidentally drowned, then sell his farm and come to the city with her. The Man attempts this very thing the next day, under the ruse of taking his wife on a nice day trip to the city on the other side of the water. He stows a bundle of reeds in the boat so he can use those to float to shore when he capsizes it. He makes his attempt in the middle of the water and The Wife, quickly realizing what is happening, pleads for her life. The Man loses his courage and rapidly rows to the opposite shore. The Wife runs off and catches a trolley to escape, but The Man hops on the car and begs her to not be afraid of him. After watching a wedding together in the city, The Man weeps in The Wife’s lap over his broken vows to keep and protect her from harm and The Wife forgives all. They have a lovely day in the city. On their way home, now blissfully in love once more, a storm hits. The Man ties his bundle of reeds to The Wife just before the boat capsizes. He washes ashore and quickly raises a search party, seemingly to no avail. He returns to his home, catatonic and inconsolable. The Woman from the City, assuming that he has merely followed through with her dastardly plan, shows up at his home. Instead of embracing her with love, he tries to strangle her to death. He is only stopped by the sound of an old woman shouting to him that The Wife has been found alive after all. The Husband runs to sit by The Wife’s side as The Woman from the City takes a wagon out of town.

Before I say anything else, let me just state for the record that FW Murnau did pull some pretty neat film tricks with Sunrise, particularly for 1927. He did some fun things with superimposition using double-exposed film. He played with a recorded soundtrack that utilized both music and a certain level of ambient sound, which was pretty innovative at the time. He genuinely made a nice looking picture for 1927. It was pretty to look at, but not fun to watch. The story itself felt like it was written by a child with just the basest of grasps on human nature. Everything seems to happen without even the slightest provocation from logic. There’s near-matricide, followed by attending a wedding, and then getting a fancy shave at a barber’s for professional photos. All of this is capped off with attendance at a fair with a roller coaster, elephants, and a fancy supper club and dance floor. A third of the movie is spent at this fair and, at one point, The Man chases a pig into a kitchen where the pig proceeds to get drunk off spilt wine. All of that sounds exactly like what you get when you ask a 4 year old to tell you  a story and you just keep asking, “And then what happened?”

And the characters! Oh the characters…. Every character in this film is fucking despicable. The Woman from the City is a homewrecking flapper hussie with an incite-others-to-murder streak that would impress Charles Manson. The Wife openly forgives her husband maybe a FUCKING HOUR after he almost took her life, then decides to spend the rest of the evening smooching and canoodling with him (Shut up, it’s not victim-blaming if it’s a fictional fucking character). The Man tried to strangle The Woman for suggesting he kill his wife, then he changed his mind and made out with her instead. He fully intended to murder The Wife, then changed his mind and pulled a knife on a guy for looking at her sideways, then decided to murder The Woman when he thought his wife was dead. What a catch, amirite ladies? What kind of asshole watches a movie like this and says, “YES. PRESERVE THIS FOREVER AS A TESTAMENT TO HUMANITY’S ACHIEVEMENTS!” (Answer: The AFI in 2007, apparently, since it didn’t appear on the original 1997 list) Now, I’ll admit that I’ve watched far dumber movies and have enjoyed them much more than this unfettered turd. Hell, I watched the Lifetime unofficial biopic about Saved By The Bell last week and enjoyed every deliciously terrible second of it. But I’m also not asking anybody to add that one to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. 

Sunrise having a spot on the AFI’s list is perplexing, at best. I get that FW Murnau did some amazing things with a camera that were impressive for the time. But, though I seem to come to the same conclusion almost every other week, I still just can’t wrap my head around how the AFI — that is, the AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE — appears to overlook a mediocre at best story in favor of focusing on the incredible techniques used to tell it. Film, at its core, is a storytelling medium. If your story isn’t worthwhile, then all the effects in the world won’t save it. It’ll just be … Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow… Avatar… Star Wars: Episode I … anything by Michael Bay…  . — KSmith