Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Aurora

"Aurora" is a film shot by Murnau in the United States with American actors but is very German (as is the director) for the expressionistic use of light, the mobility of the camera, and the reintroduction of one of the key themes of his European filmography, a theme that reveals itself as the film's content unfolds. The name of this director remains indissolubly linked to the film shot in Germany in 1922 - Nosferatu - defined by the critic Morando Morandini as “the most vampiric of all time.”

"Aurora" was awarded multiple Oscars, one for the leading actress and one for photography, a prize shared between the two cameramen, one of whom stated that “The Germans move the camera, the Americans move what is in front of it.”

With "Aurora," in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful love films ever made, I approached silent black-and-white cinema for the first time: it gave me the feeling that one can speak of love even without words.

"Aurora" tells the story of a young rural man, married with a child, ensnared by a vacationer, a city woman whose features and sensuality foreshadow the Lulu of German director Pabst, portrayed in that film by Louise Brooks (1928).

In the first part of the film, a noir atmosphere predominates, functional to the description of the strong passionate relationship between the two lovers, which culminates in the decision, suggested by the woman, to get rid of the wife by drowning her during a boat trip.

In this part of the film, the wife also appears, sweet, nurturing, with subdued tones without ever slipping into pathetic or affected. She is a very loving woman but also very sad because she is aware of her husband's betrayal and fears losing the farm where they live since the lover wants the man to sell it to follow her to the city. The young woman even finds the strength to tuck in her husband who has just returned from a romantic encounter in the marsh.

Upon waking, the man is enchanted watching how gently his wife feeds the chicks: it is impossible not to recall Charlotte from the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” who falls in love with her as he watches her cut bread for her siblings.

Unfortunately, the thought of the lover does not leave him and it is at this point that he invites his wife - who is very happy - to take a boat ride. Once they set off, the man nervously rows while the woman vainly seeks his gaze: the moment has come to throw her into the lake. She may have guessed everything, and her eyes beg her husband not to do it. An extraordinary performance by Janet Gaynor, awarded the Oscar for her ability to express the whole range of emotions with a simple movement of her eyes.

We will stop here not to deprive the viewer of the pleasure of seeing how the story unfolds. Suffice it to say that in the second part of the film, the protagonist is the city, in a series of many scenes with many details, where a masterful camera movement dominates, and the pace is cheerfully Hollywoodian. It is in the third part of the film, the most dramatic, almost cathartic, that we find what was mentioned at the beginning: even though it was shot in the United States, this film reintroduces a key theme of Murnau's German filmography, namely the dualism of erotic transgression/mortification of desire brought back into the realm of everyday life, a soothing and rejuvenating refuge. Consequently, with the arrival of the dawn, we witness the rebirth of an ancient love.