Der Yoghi (1916)

Inspired by the success of his Golem film, made two years earlier, Wegener returned to fantastical cinema with this mystical tale, The Yoghi. The story: Rasmus, a young inventor, is unable to make much headway with his ambitious plans. The development of a machine he is working on is not progressing. At an impasse, exhausted, he tries to unwind and seeks rest at a rural spa resort near a large city. The only inn in the place is too full to accommodate him, so he tries his luck at a small house on the outskirts of town. The people there are happy to clear a bed for him and let him have the ground floor of the house. A strange foreigner already lives in the attic; the villagers regard him as an eccentric. The resort’s local dignitaries warn Rasmus about his upstairs housemate, who is rarely seen: he is very peculiar. The house is said to be haunted, too; a former tenant fled it in a badly disturbed state. The most insistent person warning Rasmus is the local doctor, who knows about Indian esoteric teachings. Rasmus dismisses all the villagers’ concerns as provincial gossip, but he soon learns otherwise. His upstairs housemate is an Indian researcher named Yoghi, who has just developed a mysterious magic potion that can make a person invisible. Yoghi is a fanatical follower of the sect of the god Shiva. The young Indian woman Mira is under Yoghi’s spell. She plays a very special role in making the invisibility potion, because only she, with the hand of a pure and innocent virgin, can make the antidote that reverses the invisibility spell. Poppies are the basis of this “un-enchanting potion,” and one night, while picking these flowers by moonlight, Rasmus happens upon the young woman. Yoghi realizes that Rasmus is questioning Mira, and takes various measures to drive his overly curious—and, he hopes, easily frightened—guest out of the house. As an invisible man with all manner of ghostly tricks at his disposal, he initially does frighten Rasmus, but Rasmus is not so easily intimidated and wounds the invisible Yoghi with a pistol shot. While Yoghi has the doctor in town dress his gunshot wound, Rasmus frees Mira, who is regularly locked in her room. Before long, the two begin to develop feelings for each other and decide to put a stop to Yoghi. First, they must steal the invisibility potion. During the theft, Rasmus himself takes a hearty swig from the bottle and becomes invisible too. When Yoghi returns from his visit to the doctor, Rasmus has disappeared. Yoghi, who still has a little of the magic potion with him, is beside himself with rage and decides to kill Mira, whom he considers a traitor. Yoghi swallows the rest of his magic drops, and the two invisible men fight. A dagger whirls through the air, and furniture topples over. Rasmus manages to lock Yoghi inside the house and goes to get help with Mira. Before that, she has made him visible again with her antidote. Yoghi, abandoned by his muse, whom he had kept like a slave, is condemned to remain invisible. As a devout follower of Shiva, he appeals to his god for help and offers him a burnt sacrifice. But in the process, the whole house catches fire. As the villagers arrive, accompanied by Rasmus and his Mira, the entire house is already ablaze.