Film 365: Metropolis (1927)

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Written by: Thea von Harbou
Starring: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich

Out of the 365 films I have watched for the first time this year, Metropolis marks only the second time I have sat down to watch a silent film. They're simply so alien from what we call film today, yet they're integral to the history of film as a storytelling device. They are where filmmaking started and developed, and most importantly in the case of films like this, where filmmakers started to take advantage of the visual nature of film.

*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*

Metropolis tells a story of a city in 2026, where the rich Fathers rule from a top their massive tower complexes while their Sons frolic care-free in the 'Eternal Gardens', and of workers who spend their days underground, toiling constantly on machines to keep Metropolis powered. The master of the city is Joh Fredersen (Abel), a strikingly cold man who either does not know or does not care for the suffering of the working man. His son, Freder (Frohlich), spends his days in the Eternal Gardens, until one day he meets Maria (Helm), a woman of the working class who has brought children to the Gardens to witness the lifestyle of the rich. There's also a subplot involving a mad scientist named Rotwang, who fell in love with a woman Hel, who left Rotwang for Fredersen and later died while giving birth to Freder. As mad scientists do, Frieder has built a robotic replacement for Hel in his madness.

The story is filled with melodrama and the acting is constantly over-expressed to account for the lack of sound. It's bizarre to behold, but doesn't detract from the overall experience of this interesting and effectively built-up world. It's also undeniable just how many concepts in the plot are essentially tropes in science fiction now; the influence upon popular culture is palpable, from the massive class gap to mad scientist and his robotic invention, to body snatchers and underground cities, to the futuristic nature of Metropolis itself.

Aside from that, there are only really two aspects I want to talk about with this fantastic film. The first is one that everyone seems to point to when talking about this film: The visuals. This film came out in 1927, so every effect in the film had to, in some way, be physically done. There's these incredible sets that they use for the film, massive machines that people would work on, built to scale as the only way of expressing how truly massive they were. The paintings and miniatures used to evoke a sprawling city with buildings that look a mixture of futuristic and gothic is impressive on its own, made that much more impressive by the consideration of this film's age.

The other aspect of the film that stood out to me the most was the soundtrack. When you have nothing else to listen to, the music is impossible not to notice, and there is so much effort here to try and express exactly what we are supposed to feel about every single scene. The music is truly incredible, capable of evoking the ideas of what it wants you to experience, particularly with its use of a violin, which I can only describe as 'sublime', as well as the appropriate adaptation of "Dies Irae" and "La Marseillaise" for the film's apocalyptic and revolutionary overtones.

The Verdict: Metropolis is at this point is an exercise in understanding where film has come from. There's a reason it's quite literally the definition of a classic, and why some people consider it one of the greatest films of all time; though the style is unavoidably archaic, you can see massive influences this film has had on dystopian and utopian science fiction, and its hand in the development of film as a storytelling device is undeniable. While to many it may seem a drag to sit through, I encourage those who want to see a literal grandfather of film and science fiction in film, to take the time to appreciate this movie for what it is.

Rating: 9.5/10

Published December 23rd, 2016