Zur Chronik von Grieshuus (1925)
Directed by Arthur von Gerlach

Film Review

One of the lost gems of early German cinema to have been rediscovered and restored over the past decade is this doom-laden period melodrama, a compelling and stylish production which does justice to the quality of UFA's output during its productive heyday in the 1920s.  Zur Chronik von Grieshuss (a.k.a. The Chronicles of the Grey House) boasts an intelligent, well-constructed script by Thea von Harbou (better known for her collaborations with her husband Fritz Lang), who brings psychological depth and an unsettling modernity to her adaptation of Theodor Storm's novel Haus ohne Tür und Fenster.   Arthur von Gerlach was the film's director, the second of just two films he directed (the first being Vanina oder Die Galgenhochzeit, made three years previously), before his premature death in 1925.  Before he joined UFA, von Gerlach was an experienced theatre director and was strongly influenced by the expressionist movement, both of which are apparent in his masterful work on his second film.

The film's distinctive sets, which add greatly to the ominous and stifling feel of the piece, were contributed by Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig, who lent their talents to several important German expressionistic films, most notably Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920) and for F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926).  Like the interior decor, the exterior landscape lends the film a tangible and sustained aura of menace, bleakly anticipating the tragic events that play out amidst a violent wind storm in the film's dramatic climax.  The forbidding moors of northern Germany are sparsely inhabited by ancient castles resembling gigantic skulls in a desert, beacons of terror and oppression for the serfs who exist merely to serve the inhuman creatures that inhabit them.  The aged and unforgiving landowner Grieshuus is not so far removed from Count Orlok in Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), a monster devoid of human feeling who, bound by the rules of tradition, must favour an evil son over the one who is virtuous.  As a grim omen of what lies in store, the film opens with the starkest of death motifs, the sight of a peasant farmer carrying a scythe towards a lone traveller who is later revealed to be the sorry remnants of a man ill-used by Fate.

Whilst the sets and locations are expressionistic, the performances are, surprisingly naturalistic, and this is what gives the film its striking modernity.  Scandinavian cinema - particularly the films of Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller - may have been a strong influence on von Gerlach, evidenced by the palpable sense of realism the actors bring to their portrayals and the importance the marvellously photographed setting plays in the narrative.  It is a credit to the performances and design that the film retains its granite realism even when it ventures into the supernatural, with some convincingly realised effects adding rather than detracting from the powerful human drama that unfolds before our eyes.  Zur Chronik von Grieshuss is a hauntingly lyrical film endowed with an unmistakable eerie charm.  Its recent resurrection can only add further lustre to Germany's slowly expanding treasure trove of silent masterpieces.

Film Synopsis

In 17th century Germany, the elderly rich landowner Grieshuus of Holstein has decided that his eldest son Hinrich will inherit his entire estate.  He has no fondness for his youngest son Detlev, who is away in town studying law.  Hinrich falls in love with Bärbe, a serf's daughter.  When his father hears of this he threatens to disinherit Hinrich if he marries the girl.  The young man refuses to give up Bärbe and, on his father's death, the fortune that is rightfully his passes to his younger brother.  Hinrich's attempts to contest his father's will creates further hostility between the two brothers, which ends with Hinrich killing Detlev as his wife dies after giving birth to a son.  Some years later, Hinrich returns to the region and is reunited with his son, but his troubles are far from over...