One of the earliest extant Fritz Lang films, Destiny (Der Müde Tod) is structured around the story of a young woman challenging Death for the soul of her husband. This premise allows for Lang to indulge in Expressionist, atmospheric dread and epic fantasy, creating an interesting contrast in its parallel stories of star-crossed young lovers whose destinies end tragically in death.

Lang begins this dark tale with an appropriately eerie carriage ride through a stark landscape. The passengers in the coach include a young couple, played by Lil Dagover and Walter Janssen, apparently newly-married, making their way to a town. The whole sequence calls to mind similarly eerie coach rides in films like Murnau’s Nosferatu or Sjostrom’s The Phantom Carriage. En route, the carriage stops to pick up a dark, mysterious stranger (played by Bernhard Goetze), immediately filling the young couple with a sense of dread. Upon their arrival in town, the couple stops at the Golden Unicorn Inn, where the members of the town council also convene on a nightly basis. The story briefly transitions into a flashback, as the council members tell of the mysterious stranger (the same figure we saw earlier in the carriage) who came to the village seeking to lease a piece of property next to the town cemetery, eventually erecting a wall around the property whose only means of passage was a secret gate, known only to the stranger himself.

Excerpt from NotComing located HERE

Lang's first major success was inspired by the Intolerance device of mixing parallel settings and cultures. Death gives a young girl three chances to save her lover's life, in old Baghdad, in 17th century Venice, and in mythical China. The tone ranges from baroque melodrama to eccentric whimsy, and the plotting is full of digressions and asides, but Lang's design sense and use of architectural space gives the film a basic consistency. And the plentiful special effects still look amazingly inventive.

1) Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray - TOP 2) Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM

1) Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray - TOP 2) Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray BOTTOM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

Kino Lorber use a linear PCM 2.0 channel track at 1536 kbps. It sports a newly-composed score by Cornelius Schwehr as a commissioned composition by ZDF / ARTE performed by the 70-member Berlin Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Frank Strobel. It sounds amazing! - dramatic and perfect. There are optional English subtitles offered and they have preserved the original German intertitles (see samples above) and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

Masters of Cinema inch ahead here as their linear PCM is more robust being 2304 kbps / 24-bit - as opposed to 16-bit. It is the same score by Cornelius Schwehr, performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Frank Strobel, but sounds a shade more rich and deep to those who ears can detect such. Masters of Cinema also use the original German intertitles with optional English subtitles. But their Blu-ray disc is region 'B'.

Extras :

Adding further value we are blessed with another educational and rewarding audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas. He quotes Lang quite often and gives a fabulous overview of the production with background details of cast etc. I appreciated his adept analysis of specific scenes. There is also a 1/4 hour restoration comparison (split screen) and a 2016 re-release trailer.

Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' - Blu-ray