Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927
There's nothing bad in this movie that kids can't watch, but I can definitely see how it could give some younger crowds nightmares. Metropolis is a whirlwind of a movie and to be honest, I am not entirely sure what happened for two hours while I was watching. It is set in a utopian future-like world, with tons of skyscrapers and cable cars. From the very first scenes, it is clear that the main theme of this movie is to show the divide between the working class and the rich. This movie takes it to the extreme, with the workers living a sad and miserable life below the city (called "the depths). They are completely isolated from society. The people in the city live a lush and extravagant lifestyle, completely unaware of the depths or the workers living there. Only a few people are aware: the creator of the city, Joh Frederson, and his colleagues and assistants. His son, Freder Frederson (creative!), is really living the life up above the depths. He's playing hide and seek with his pals when this mysterious, beautiful woman appears from behind doors with a ton of little kids. They look poor and pretty ragged, and Freder is really taken aback by all of this. He asks what is going on, and the woman (we later learn her name is Maria) says that the little kids are his brothers and sisters. They disappear, and he runs off through the doors to look for her, because he is instantly in love with her. The doors lead to the depths, and this is the first time Freder discovers the workers and how they live. He decides that he wants to join the workers and try to make their lives better. This really makes his dad mad, because he wants to conceal the depths and sure as heck doesn't want his son to be one of the workers. Freder goes down there and sees Maria again, who is like a weird preacher who says that the 'mediator' is coming soon. The mediator is what Maria and the workers believe what will solve the divide between the workers and the rich people in the society, saying that 'without the heart, there can be no understanding between the head and the hands'. Things go awry when Freder's dad finds out where he is, and he enlists the help of his creepy mechanic friend Rotwang to kill Freder and stop the workers from uprising. He had created a machine man (pictured above), and his plan was to kidnap Maria and kill her and give the machine her face. This way, Freder would do whatever the fake Maria said. A lot of the things that happened afterwards that I didn't really catch, but the fake Maria basically led the workers to a riot and they began to destroy the machines, and the depths flooded. The fake Maria was burned at stake because the workers believed that their children were all killed during the riot and that she was responsible, but the fire revealed that it was actually a robot. Above ground, Freder's dad and Rotwag were fighting to the death, because Frederson discovered that Rotwag was planning to betray him, and Rotwag fell to his death off a building. Maria (the real one) and Freder were watching the whole time, and the movie ends with Maria and Frederson shaking hands, the divide between the two societies finally diminished. So, happy ending? I liked this movie and the theme behind it. It is a little alarming that Germany's idea of the future at the time was a completely dividing society and a secret underground of mistreated workers. I thought it was a little confusing, probably because the only dialogue that you could actually understand was title cards. It got boring towards the end, but for a German expressionist film, it was not bad.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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