Geheimnisse einer Seele

With a brilliant tip of the hat to Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, German filmmaker G.W. Pabst offers Secrets of a Soul, a convoluted tale of a chemistry professor (Caligari’s Werner Krauss) haunted by inexplicable resentments. The professor doesn’t really dislike his wife’s cousin, who is returning after several years in India: why, then do thoughts of murder keep entering his head? The dream sequences–to which Pabst gave credence by hiring two of Freud’s assistants as consultants–elaborate upon existing Freudian symbolism to the bursting point. Pabst had always been fascinated by the subconscious; here he seems intoxicated by the subject. Especially effective is Pabst’s use of multiple dissolves and superimpositions, all accomplished “in the camera” without any post-production lab work. Originally titled Geheimnisse einer Seele.