The lighting in Sunrise was, I think the most important component of the entire film. Throughout the film it seemed that the lighting itself was enhancing the story of the film. Looking at the first 3 images you can see that the woman from the city is always shrouded in darkness. She never appears in light and seems to hide in the shadows. As the film opens, you can see the woman from the city strolling through the town in darkness while the homes she is passing are filled with light.
And when it comes to the man, he is inside the light and warmth of his home, but the "darkness" is calling to him, which I believe the 2nd photo shows. The man seems torn throughout the film between the light and dark. He also seems to be shot from behind or out of view from his face while he is carrying out the bidding of the woman from the city, but once he goes from his "igor" to moving husband and father transformation, his face is constantly in the shot. Even in the fifth photo, you can see that the light is again fleeing the man and he is becoming much darker again.
The wife however is always shot in the light. She is always the light showing him the way to who he used to be and eventually brings him back from the darkness/woman who has consumed him. Even after his attempted murder of the wife, (which she forgave him for really quickly), in the photo she seems so small. It seems that if she represents the light of the man that has almost been lost. And just after the photo, the man comes back to the boat and he is just a large dark mass that is setting out on this dark mission.
The lighting was so important to this film and I felt that to a degree it made up for the music of the film which did not seem to fit the film in some cases. The lighting was able to tell you things about the characters so that they did not have to be explained through additional shots.
Nicely done, Atlee. The use of light is certainly a good indicator of where we are, say, morally in the film. You make a good comparison with the music, which, I think, is sometimes less subtle and nuanced than the lighting. You might also ask about the effectiveness of the titles compared to the lighting. To some extent, we're interested in the complexity of the images, what quantities of information they can convey on their own.
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