A Messenger from the Shadows (Notes on Film 06 A/Monologue 01)

Thanks to his myriad film roles, Lon Chaney is known as “the man of a thousand faces,” and you could say that the early horror era never beheld a figure more intriguing. Yet because of his numerous transformations, his face never became as iconic as that of, say, Boris Karloff. Accompanied by a soundtrack from Bernhard Lang, this “reimagination of shots” taken from Chaney’s forty-six surviving films offers a beguiling excursion into the history of film. The director reveals surprising associations, while highlighting the enduring magic of works which are now more or less forgotten. Over it all hangs a mood of dejection emanating from the fact that Chaney appears as a lonesome film warrior. While Messenger could certainly be seen as a tribute to an iconic figure of silent film, it is first and foremost a fascinating exploration of the medium, giving rise to a new sense of drama we wouldn’t have expected to find in a Chaney movie: film allows us to communicate across the years and decades, while betraying itself as a fascinating fount of unreliable memory. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)