“FAUST”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 15

“FAUST”

COMING TO AUCKLAND From that legend from the master dabbler in diablerie, Lr. Faustus, a motion picture has been made magnificently beautiful in its intelligence, in its photography, in its acting and direction. Through its sincerity, the seriously imaginative qualities, the movie “Faust” possesses greatness and power. Out of the legends came that bargain between Faust and Mephisto whereby the olcl bearded student held such commerce with the devil that he gained back his youth and its enjoyment again, the devil to take his soul after death. From Goethe, the movie took the love between the fragile Marguerite and the young Faust. F. M. Murnau directed this as a placeless, periodless story, running through it always that particular philosophic string of Goethe’s that the soul is not man’s to„irade away. There are such scenes as the gray misty ride of a black satin devil guiding the eager young Faust over the world on a carpet after the terror and darkness of the transformation. There are the many touches of magic. There are the delicate scenes of the courtship, in which Camilla Horn with serene brow and long gold'braids, plays Marguerite to the Faust of Gosta Ekman. Emil Jannings delivers a Mephisto slightly corpulent, a devil of a robust humour, a persistency and a treacherousness and finally one with a sure knowledge of dominance. Against the settings, all tinged with lunacy, he stands out. big, in dwarfing Booms, a trick of camera angle. Watching for camera angles, here, turns into glorious adventure this tragedy of Faust, which is at the same time a triumph for U.F.A. “Faust” will have its Australasian premiere at the Regent on November IS.