Faust is a masterpiece. It has anything anyone could possibly want from a film, unless that person is a moron. I was suspicous of this film, as I had not been a fan Murneau's Nosferatu and The Last Laugh. I changed my mind on Nosferatu after I saw it the way Murnea intended- it was one of the greatest of all horror movies. Even that movie is not as good as Faust.
The story is familer even if you've never read the plays by Goethe and Marlow, as I havn't. A man makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for anything that he wants- or so he thinks. What seems like a predicatble fable takes on such weight in this film. Unlike so many stories of this type- we actully see why the pact is so tempting- why won't God give you what you want, when all you want is to help others? What's wrong with wanting to love someone?
Because we invest so much in the characters, we care about what happens to them. The last act of the film is spellbinding. Very few directors can show the depths of the human experience like this on the screen- I was reminded of Dreyer and Bergman.
In addition to the personal story, we are treated to spectral forces- we see angels and the Devil literally, and the archeytpes at the back of our mind come out in force. This one of the few films- Nosferatu, The Seventh Seal and The Shining are the only other examples that I can think of, where the supernatural intermix in the lives humans in a totally beleivable way and spectral way. Everything in this film happens is beleivable- it's what the characters would do if this happend to them.
If you have ever been tempted to do evil, and if you are human, you have- you need to see this film.
Faust (1926)