Thea Von Harbou played a vital role in the creation of German Expressionist movies directed by Lang (her husband), during 1919-1933, including (among others) Weary Death, Metropolis, Dr. Mabuse, and M.
Background
Weary Death (described as a German folk tale) was Lang’s first critical success, highly symbolic of the inevitable role death plays in love and loss. The original movie is black and white, creating a very gray and somber mood that is extremely atmospheric, with German subtitles accompanied by music. The British name of the movie is Destiny; the American film is Beyond the Wall or Between two Worlds, and also known as The Three Lights.
Death: A Symbolic Portrayal
Death is portrayed as a gaunt figure with an ashen, expressionless face and sunken eyes, clothed in a long drab cloak. Death is not evil, but rather a neutral force, and by the end of the film the audience is meant to realize that.
The story begins with a betrothed couple (never named) deeply in love. One afternoon, during a pleasant ride, a lone passerby – Death – stops their horse drawn taxi and enters. He sits directly across from the lovers staring with fixed eyes.
They quickly leave the coach, only to encounter the same figure in a tavern (unaware he has followed them). The eerie being sits down at their private table, saying nothing. The scene suggests death cannot always be avoided, that it chooses who it will.
When Death’s beer glass changes into an hourglass the frightened girl leaves the room. She returns to the table, but, to her surprise, her betrothed has left with the stranger.
She searches everywhere ending outside the walled cemetery (a high, impenetrable barricade Death built without exit or entranceway). Souls of the freshly dead approach, walking past her through the wall. In horror she sees her fiancé, reaches toward him and collapses.
Fighting Destiny
Inconsolable, she enters an apotheque and attempts swallowing poison after reading a quote from an opened Bible, “Love is stronger than death.”
Transported to a visionary staircase she meets Death and asks for her amour. Death declines; it’s not her time to die. Death explains not to take it personally, it is his own destiny to take away souls, and he is, in fact, very tired of it.
He shows her a chamber of candles, many glowing, others extinguished, some quickly melting unto their bases. Each flame is another life he must take – some in youth, others during old age – as his tiresome duty. To prove this, he takes a small flame from a candle into his palms and it turns into a vision of an infant, its mother weeping over her untimely loss. This is the unfair job Death is fated to for all time.
Nevertheless, the girl begs for her lost love until Death relents; if she can save only one of three lives represented by three (barely flickering) candles, he’ll grant her wish.
Stories Within a Tale
Her soul is sent to the Middle East, Venice, and India. The movie alludes these may be previous reincarnations (where she must change her past), or perhaps Death has merely created a visual fantasy for her to meet his challenge. Reality and unreality entwine beautifully throughout the whole film.
Each is an exotic mini-episode (China is particularly imaginative, with a flying carpet and magic horse conjured by a bizarre wizard); however, the outcome remains unchanged. The girl’s lover is again lost to Death, fate works against her every time. Destiny cannot be undone, finally illustrated by the third candle expiring.
Undaunted, she beseeches Death until he wearily says to bring him a living soul in exchange for her dead love.
Becoming Fate
The scene then flashes back to the girl sipping poison, which the druggist hurls from her hands.
Excitedly, she asks the druggist if he’d please “gift” his life to her since he already lived many years. Enraged, he throws her out of his apotheque. She finds the town beggar (a wretched, sickly man) promising an end to his misery. He angrily replies, “not a day (of my life), not an hour.” She soon finds even the most miserable of beings are unwilling to give up the gift of their own life.
When she overhears some old people discussing wishes for a peaceful death, she’s heartened. Yet they flee upon hearing her offer, the last women dropping a candle in panic. A terrible house fire ensues with an infant trapped inside.
The girl rushes back into the flaming building, eager to give a living baby to Death in exchange for her lover, but her conscience intervenes. She cannot perform so cruel an act. Instead, she finally changes fate, wrapping the infant in sheets, gently lowering it through a window to the mother. She tells Death she simply cannot pay his high price, though life without love will be meaningless.
Perhaps rewarded for unselfishness, Death takes her to a crypt where her dead love reposes in state. She runs to him, weeping; death touches her head and she instantly dies, consumed in fire as the roof collapses.
In a scene somewhat reminiscent of the later filmed (1972) Wuthering Heights, both souls rise from their fallen bodies. Death takes them gently under his cloak and leads them away… Then Death himself disappears, and only the two continue on toward eternity.
Mystique of Silent Film
Physical movement in silent film is the way acting was defined, and one cannot help being enthralled by such visual beauty. If this unique movie could be remade, with its rich surrealism and mystic themes, it would still be timely although perhaps there are certain meanings in film and art that only silence can say.
Weary Death is said to be among Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite films. Ironically, in 1954, Thea von Harbor fell during one of its showings in Berlin, and died.
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