The Man Who Laughs 1928 - Review

Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine

Plot 

"The Man Who Laughs" is a film about Gynplaine who has had a permanent smile carved across his face because his father Lord Clancharlie betrayed King. Gynplaine is taken in by a travelling showman called Dr Hardquanonne. He soon falls in love with blind Deauteous (reffered to as Dea throughout the film) Gwynplaine becomes a popular act with the people at Southwark Fair. However the evil Jester - Barkilpedro plans to sabotage Gynplaine and Deas relationship...

Review

This is an American film directed by a German expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, this explains the interesting names and set designs. At the time the film was criticized for this as people thought the Germanic sets did not represent 17th century England. However now this film is celebrated for being one of the final true silent German expressionist films.
 I started watching this film thinking it was a horror or a thriller of some kind because of looking at the pictures on the internet, I meant look at the picture above, he doesn't particularly look like a friendly kind of guy does he? When I realised it was a film about love I was slightly taken a back not sure what to think of it but I ended up absolutely loving it. The relationship between Gwynplaine and Dea is truly beautiful there is so much emotion in there facial expressions and even the lack of dialogue doesn't matter as the sound and music portrays an amazing connection between the two characters. I was so stunned by Veidt's acting skills in this film as he is unable to express emotion through his mouth as it is constantly in a fixed position but the amount of emotion he can express through his eyes and body language is incredible and shows off how much of a wonderful actor he is. 

With this being an early silent film I was not expecting much for the camera work, as most scenes are only shot from one or two perspectives. However the amount of interesting shots they used in the film was surprising, many of the shots seem really advanced for the film for example- there is a shot filmed from a moving ferris wheel and you see glimpsis of the fair and the crowds of people for only a split second at a time. Another one was a shot filmed through the spokes of a carts wheel, Dea's face is perfectly framed in this. 

Dea and her trusted dog Homo

Near the start of the film we see establishing shots of Southwark fair, its really interesting to see the different types of acts portrayed in the fair, for example we see- Dwarfs, elephants, clowns and signs promoting various "freak" like animals. This really reminded me of Tod Brownings film "Freaks" which was released in 1932. The aspect of Gwynplaine being judged and not being accepted is really moving, especially in the scene at the end of one of his shows, all the clowns are walking around taking their makeup off and one of them says to him "what a lucky clown you are – you don’t have to rub off your laugh” We can see that this is all that Gwynplaine wants to be able to do - Take off his smile and be normal.

We see how self conscious he is about his appearance as he wont even let Dea touch his mouth in fear she will change her mind about him. Despite Dea loving Gwynplaine so much he still feels that it is because she is blind and cant see his appearance.  He gets a letter from Duchess Josiana (Who is played by Olga Baclanova who is also in Tod Brownings "Freaks") explaining how she didn't laugh at him because she loved him, however Gwynplaine soon realises that she is just the same as the rest of the people who make fun of him. When he realises that Dea will love him no matter what he lets her touch his mouth and Dea explains “God closed my eyes so I cold see only the real Gwynplaine", this beautiful line explains perfectly how she will always see him as being the kind person he really is.
 One other important character I want to touch on is Dea and Gwynplaine's dog - Homo. We see him constantly protecting Dea and trying to bring her and Gwynplaine together. We even see him guiding Dea by holding her dress in his mouth and guiding her the right way, I thought this could possibly one of the first reference to guide dogs in film as the first guide dog schools were set up in Germany! 

Verdict 

A great acted and beautifully shot film, possibly one of the strongest most unique love story in a film I have ever seen. Can appreciate this film possibly is not for everyone being quite obscure but if your interested in early silent expressionist films it is a MUST SEE ! 

Trivia 

Here are just a few interesting trivia facts related to "The Man Who Laughs" -  
1. Bob Kane took inspiration from Gwynplaine's facial expression for his villain in Batman... The Joker ! 
2. Veidt's wife was Jewish so they moved from Germany to London as the Nazis started to gain power. Joseph Goebbels phoned Veidt several times trying to persuade him to work on Nazi propaganda films..he refused. 
3. Veidt donated large proportions of his earnings from each film to the British war relief