Destiny

Live accompaniment by Kamyar Arsani

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This “bizarre and captivating . . . eerie dream of longing and fear” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) was hailed by film scholar Tom Gunning as “one of the most perfectly crafted films of the Weimar cinema.” Fritz Lang’s silent-era masterpiece uses the nesting stories structure of The Thousand and One Nights and includes a section inspired by its tales.

In Destiny, Death comes to a small German town in the figure of a mysterious stranger who builds an enormous walled garden for keeping souls. After spiriting away a young woman’s fiancé, Death offers her a deal: if she can save her lover’s life in three alternate realities—ancient Persia, Renaissance Venice, and ancient China, he will return him to the living.

Kamyar Arsani, a scholar of the daf (the Iranian frame drum) is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Through his solo work and numerous collaborations, Arsani creates music across an array of styles, ranging from classical Persian music to genre-defying punk and electronic experimentation. He last performed at the museum with Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life in 2024.

Director: Fritz Lang. Country: Germany. Released: 1921. Length: 97 min. Format: Restored DCP. Silent with English intertitles.

A film from the holdings of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden.
Image courtesy of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung