The Blue Angel

The Blue Angel         

The Blue Angel is a German film; it is another expressionism film that follows silent movies during the 1920s. This film expresses change in German society. The main change is to introduce talking in the film. The setting is black and white with more appealing and larger cast. Several shadows in the movie reflect mysteries and dangers. The film depicts the view on moral and superiority. The main theme of the film is Professor Rath’s failure in the community; he is seduced by Lola Lola forceful power of sexuality: he reduces from a respectful school teacher to that of a clown, in which he lost his dignity. The Blue Angel is night club with the settings as a place of sex, seduction, drinking and exotic music.  Lola Lola’s attraction is captivating. Her fans are hypnotized by her attractiveness and sensuality. She seems to get what she wants. The way she dresses indicates attracts males. She becomes a commodity through picture and her singing talent. She makes profit by selling her singing talent and her pictures. Lola seems to be in control. She enslaves men and satisfies her need for comfort, security and power.

The film basically starts with Immanuel Rath, a lonely, withdrawn and shy in the first scene in his apartment. He is professor of a German boy’s high school. He is a man with no sense of humor, he is careful in his attitude and his associated with civilization. He decides to confront Lola the night club singer, about her alluring effect on his students. At this point, Rath himself becomes attracted to Lola.

In the scene where Rath wakes up with the black doll which symbolizes Lola’s alluring and dangerous sensuality which she figurative uses in the weakening of Ruth in their first sex act. He displays his weakness and obsession for Lola. Absorbed by the sensual carefree Lola, he continues to return to the Blue Angel night-club to be with her. Soon he becomes the object of ridicule and, in an attempt to protect some notion of "honor" marries her.  Years later Rath is unemployed and humiliation have damage the reputation of the once dignified teacher. He is untidy and broken; hypocritically selling provocative pictures of his wife to the patrons; this he promised would never do while he is with her. He is subject to increasingly degrading circumstances, climaxing in a pathetic clown act in front of his former colleagues and student. Here a highly nuisance portrait of a staid elderly man ruined by his obsessive, cheated on by his flirtatious wife. Ruth been under stress form his trodden life became withdrawn, he appears irrational, irritable, aggressive and violent towards Lola in the last scene where she was with that young strongman.

How the relationship between the rational/irrational is displayed in the film?

The scene where the shadow of the school bullies looks over the sleeping classmate and attacked him. This foreshadows the way in which German society humiliates intellectuals and glorifies the physical. This can is also seen in the odd relationship of the professor and Lola Lola. The film shows their low morals and hardship. Shadows in the movie relate to a world of darkness and a place of alienation, the evil in the world have the power to send one insane.  Rath is obsessive and fascinated by an undecided, mysterious temptress whose infrequent self-sacrifices fail to disguise her mockery of the absurdity of romantic love and sexual infatuation. Lola supplied the detached but intense personality. These scenes reflect irrationalism. Rationalism is depicted in the scene in the class when the head master of the school addresses Rath situation.

This film is nihilistic; it opposes traditional ideas of morality. It depicts nihilism in several ways, for instance, in the classroom scene, some of the boys was exploring other ways of life instead of the tradition of society to respect those in high position; after the professor visit the club and the boys learn of their affair, the students became lawless and disorder in class. They disrespected the Professor Rath and opposed to some moral principle of that social system. In addition, nihilism is display in the professor and Lola relationship, the role of the male domain shift to Lola.  When she married Rath, she displays the male sex role. First, she seduced him, the supported him and in the end she disregarded him for a younger partner.  This is a form of rejecting the tradition social order.