Metropolis

1927 - Silent

Director: Fritz Lang
Staring: Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge

Summary:

The year is 2026, and the human race is divided between the thinkers and workers. The thinkers don’t know how to do anything but plan, and the workers know how to execute the plans but don’t have vision to create plans.

The workers secretly listen to Maria, who wants to find a mediator to link the two halves. The son of the thinker’s leader, Joh Fredersen, travels into the underground to see what his fellow men do. The shock and awe that Joh goes through seeing his fellow men suffer for hours and hours each day to keep his world running smoothly.

Joh’s father decides that Maria must be stopped. To keep everyone in place he contacts Rotwang, the inventor, and they both plan to stop her. Unfortunately Rotwang has other plans for Maria, and his newly created robot.

Review:

Metropolis is stunning. Absolutely stunning. The most unfortunate thing about the film is that a quarter of it is lost, most likely forever. The story itself might seem naive to some, simple to others, and boring to even more still. They just don’t get it.

Camera techniques were so advanced for the time; they almost seem out of place, especially when the advent of sound films destroyed the state of cinematography, and nearly took two decades for it to even partially recover. The film uses multiple-exposed shots, which were created on set (not in post-production) by exposing the camera sometimes up to 30 times!

If you call yourself a film buff and you haven’t seen the film, don’t hesitate and watch it as soon as possible!

Verdict: *****/*****