Nosferatu

Nosferatu (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922)

A classic canon of Films with a major F and one of the earliest instalments of Horror in movies, Murnau’s Nosferatu has inspired, influenced, been copied, and idolized. This review won’t try to repeat the thousands of analysis and critics it already been praised and sang. However, this critic who is now writing at the third person, ranks it as one of his personal favorite films. Not just Silent films but films in general. It even was on this critic’s ballot for the 2012 Sight and Sound Poll. But BFI didn’t asked me to cast my votes so I won’t be bragging much about it.

Nanook of the North

Nanook of the North (Robert J.Flaherty, 1922)

Having loved Flaherty's Louisiana Story, I got into Nanook of the North with some expectations of documentary style and realism. This Silent Film shot during one year in the great North of my country, Canada and even more specifically, the Province of Québec, has a very important anthropological value. It shows how those people pratically isolated from civilization lived in these extreme conditions.
However this is not absolutely a great film or the kind of feature you want to buy and watch repeatedly. It's the subject matter and how the techniques of documentaries have been developped within this film. It is more important to see this film as a piece of History, a witness of another time instead of a great film. It is clearly the birth of documentaries, even if Flaherty always had some kind of story structure behind his images, it is still a how to make documentaries.
It was a mandatory stop as a part of my journey through Mediafilm's Masterpieces list and They Shoot Pictures' 1000 Greatest Films.