Directing: Fritz Lang
Screenwriting: Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang
Starring: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
Review:
“Stylized, visually-compelling, [and] melodramatic,” FS “Lang’s German Expressionistic masterpiece helped develop the science-fiction genre.” FS “With its images of spired skyscrapers and synchronous lines of blue-collar drones,” PM this “classic silent-film fantasy” LM “set in the 21st century city of Metropolis” FS “defined a new type of futuristic-nightmare art, the influence of which can be seen in such films as Brazil and Gattaca.” PM
PM Lang’s vision of this “futuristic city and its mechanized society” LM “retains its power” PM all these years later. “The luxurious, futuristic city of skyscrapers and bridges is stratified and divided into an upper, elite, privileged class and a subterranean, nameless, oppressed, ant-like worker/slave class.” FS
Freder (Frohlich) is “the young son of a ruling, aristocratic capitalist Master John Fredersen (Abel).” FS He follows Maria (Helm), a beautiful, young, Christ-like woman, and a group of worker children “into the squalid, labyrinthine underground slums” FS and “discovers the miserable life of the proletariat.” FS He abandons “his life of luxury to join oppressed workers in a revolt.” LM
“Heavy going at times, but startling set design and special effects command attention throughout. Many shorter prints exist; reissued in 1984 at 87 minutes with color-tints and score by Giorgio Moroder.” LM
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