The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Director: Robert Wiene, Germany 1920, 77 min.

The film tells the story of the (alleged) showman Dr. Caligari. The latter appears one day in the small town of Holstenwall and presents at the fair there the sleepwalker Cesare, who suffers from a strange, trance-like illness. The scrawny, pale somnambulist tells the future to onlookers at the fair. At night, however, he prowls the city, committing horrible murders under the influence of his master.
When Caligari becomes suspicious and flees, he seems to be cornered in an asylum by Francis, the friend of one of the victims. But the latter makes a terrible discovery: the insane Dr. Caligari is the director of the asylum.

The film’s ambiguity is created by the frame story: Francis, who narrates the story of Caligari, is himself an inmate of the mental asylum….