A cigarette case ruins everything in 21 minutes of pure Weimar dread.
A tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.
Direction
Metzner's geometric framing predicts film noir a decade early.
Cinematography
Expressionist shadows on Berlin streets—pure visual anxiety.
Director
Ernö Metzner
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
New Objectivity rejected Expressionism's emotional excess for cold social documentation—this is its most merciless example.
Metzner's career ended when Nazis banned 'degenerate art'—he died in obscurity in 1953.
DE
