Homunculus

Homunculus

1916. Germany. Directed by Otto Rippert. Screenplay by Robert Reinert. With Olaf Fønss, Ernst Ludwig, Adolf Paul, Alfred Paul, Theodor Loos. Long believed lost except for a single chapter, this astounding science-fiction serial is the German Fantômas and then some—the story of a laboratory-created superman (played in brooding, romantic fashion by Olaf Fønss) who is at once a master criminal and a Christ figure. Painstakingly reconstructed from fragments discovered in seven film archives by Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum, the six-part film is filled with the neuroses that would explode into Expressionism and charged with the political contradictions that would lead to National Socialism. Reconstruction by the Munich Filmmuseum. Silent, with new piano score by Richard Siedhoff. Approx. 200 min.; plus 20-min. introduction and 10-min. intermission.