The Yoghi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The Yoghi
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1916
Rod
Director Paul Wegener
script Paul Wegener
production Paul Davidson
for PAGU, Berlin
camera Mads Anton Madsen
occupation

The Yoghi is a German silent film from 1916 by and with Paul Wegener , who can be seen in a double role.

action

Inspired by the success of his Golem film, shot two years earlier , Wegener once again turned to the cinema of the fantastic with this mystical story The Yoghi .

About the content: Rasmus, a young inventor, doesn't really get on with his thirst for action. The development of a machine that he is working on does not want to advance. Having reached a dead point, the exhausted tries to find relaxation and seeks rest in a rural health resort near a big city. The only inn on the square can no longer accommodate him due to overcrowding, so he tries his luck in a small house on the outskirts of the village. They are happy to give him a place to sleep and give him the ground floor of the house. A strange stranger already lives in the attic, who is notorious in the village for being a strange owl.

The spa town's dignitaries warned Rasmus about his upper-story roommate, who was rarely seen: He was very strange. In general this house is haunted; a previous tenant fled this house badly disturbed. The biggest warner to Rasmus is the local doctor who is familiar with Indian secret doctrines. Rasmus brushes aside all the concerns of the villagers as provincial chatter and is soon learned otherwise. His roommate, who lives above him, is an Indian researcher named Yoghi, and he has just developed a mysterious magic potion with which one can make oneself invisible. Yoghi is a fanatical follower of the sect of the god Shiva .

The young Indian woman Mira is under Yoghi's spell. It plays a very special role in the production of the invisible magic potion. Because only she can use her hand, that of a pure and innocent virgin, to create the antidote that cancels the invisible magic. This “disenchanting agent” is based on poppies , and one day Rasmus surprises the young girl while picking this very plant in the moonlight. The yoghi notices that Rasmus Mira is eavesdropping, and then does something to drive the overly curious and, he hopes, terrible guest out of the house. As an invisible man with all kinds of spooky antics in his repertoire, he actually scares Rasmus at first, but he is not so easily intimidated and injures the invisible Yoghi with a pistol shot.

While the yoghi is bandaging the gunshot wound by the doctor, Rasmus frees Mira, who is regularly locked in her chamber. Both soon begin to feel for each other and decide to stop the yoghi. To do this, the invisible magic potion must first be stolen. Rasmus himself takes a strong sip from the bottle and is now invisible as well. When the yoghi returns from the doctor's visit, Rasmus has disappeared. The Yoghi, who still has a little of the miracle cure with him, is beside himself with anger and then wants to kill Mira, a traitor in his eyes. The yoghi swallows the rest of his miracle drops, and the two invisible men fight a duel. A dagger whirls through the air, furniture falls over.

Rasmus manages to lock the Yoghi in the house and get help together with Mira. Before that, she made him visible again with her disenchantment potion. The yoghi, abandoned by his slave muse, is doomed to remain invisible. As a devout Shiva follower, he asks his God for help and therefore brings him a burnt offering. During this action, however, the whole house catches fire. While the villagers approached, accompanied by Rasmus and his Mira, the entire house is already on fire and ablaze.

Production notes

The film consists of a prelude and five acts. The world premiere of Der Yoghi took place in front of invited guests immediately after von Wegener's fairy tale film Rübezahl's Wedding , on October 5, 1916, also in Berlin's Union Palast Kurfürstendamm .

The buildings were designed by Wegener's assistant director Rochus Gliese , with whom he worked at almost the same time at Rübezahl's wedding . Rübezahl cameraman Mads Anton Madsen was also involved in Der Yoghi .

The interior photos were taken in the UFA Union studio in Berlin-Tempelhof .

The Yoghi and Rübezahl's wedding can be seen as the first results of a reform of the cinema system and understanding of film, which Wegener had suggested and called for in the spring of Easter 1916 in his lecture “New Cinema Goals”. At that time Wegener wrote: “The cinema allows all imaginable possibilities; to make even the strangest, most fantastic ideas clear. "

Reviews

The Yoghi received inconsistent criticism. The overly conventional direction was often criticized, but praised his wealth of imagination and the (archaic-looking) trick-technical effects.

The Lichtbild-Bühne came to the following conclusion: The "Wegener film" Yoghi ", which was shown for the first time on Thursday in front of an invited audience, made the hope that was generally placed on Wegener disappear. Cinematographic gimmicks, technical subtleties, tricks in beautiful clothes, which the audience cannot understand and which dominate the subject as a whole, are not meant to show us new paths. […] The shots that were brilliantly successful in individual pictures, the captivating creative power, the dramatic play of Paul Wegener, the plasticity of all movements and the understanding facial expressions of the incomparable Lydia Salmonowa would have been worthy of a better cause. If a more lighter, brisk tone had been put into the whole thing, if the film hadn't seemed so long and tiring, it would have been a success with the audience too. "

In the Berliner Morgenpost of October 8, 1916 one could read: “The audience, which filled the room down to the last seat, was full of the best expectation, as the magnificent Rübezahl film shown a few days ago probably justified. But the expectation was disappointed - despite Wegener's gripping game in the difficult double role. But the scenes in which the Yoghi makes himself invisible and the objects fly through the room, thrown by an invisible hand, were too reminiscent of the good old, unfortunately so rare cartoon films, which were consistently funny and made the laughing air. And unfortunately that was also the case with the seriously intended trick scenes of "Yoghi". Wegener's well-intentioned intention has attempted an unsuitable accusation here. What was charming in "Rübezahl" became comical in "Yoghi". "

In the Casseler Tageblatt of October 16, 1916, it says: “[T] he attempt by Wegener's [is] to be welcomed to at least direct the art of film to tasks that are and must remain closed to the theater for technical reasons, but which are nevertheless good So don't hit taste in the face: the magic of the world of fairy tales and ghosts, for which the German people have such a peculiar enthusiasm not only in childhood but also in mature age, to let the sensual eye arise. […] Paul Wegener showed himself in all areas of his art: he is his own poet and director - in a technical and executed manner - and embodied the main male roles of Rasmus and Joghi in a masterly way. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hedwig Gutzeit was Wegener's sister, who was almost four years older
  2. ^ Lichtbild-Bühne, issue 40 of October 7, 1916
  3. ↑ Berliner Morgenpost criticism in filmportal.de (PDF; 365 kB)
  4. ↑ Casseler Tageblatt review in filmportal.de (PDF; 400 kB)

Web links