Faust & Man with the Movie Camera

Faust and Man with the Movie Camera are two late-era silent films by European directors, Faust by F.W. Murnau and Man by Dziga Vertov. Murnau, of course, is a vastly talented director, while I've never heard of anything by Vertov. It's an experimental film, following a man, who just happens to have a movie camera, around the Soviet Union making the film that we're watching. It's... strange. It's interesting, but it just seems a little too out there for me. Faust is one of the classic stories, and it's a very good retelling. Well, the impressive imagery is typical of Murnau, but there are typically melodramatic touches that hurt the film. Of course, they weren't as cliched back then, but they are now. Faust is the better film, but Man with the Movie Camera is the more important film in history for it's cinematic inventiveness.