For all its pictorialism, one of Lang's more over-rated silent films.
Its plot, about a girl offered three chances to save the life of her lover
from a personified Death, is a rather simple-minded literalisation of
the fatalistic themes which informed the director's work. Thea von
Harbou's script tries for universality and intensity, but just ends up
being unspecific and grandiloquent. Yet the film remains interesting
for Lang's attempt to apply a different visual style to each of its
episodes, and for its rhythmical, reiterative structure, with each
episode passing from day to night, and so on. And Goetzke gives a
haunting performance as Death.
