Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
You may not believe it, but one of the best science-fiction films ever made was released way back in 1927, during the silent film era. Metropolis is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece that is as thrilling today as it was when it was released. In fact, it's a good deal more thrilling today than it has been for several decades, because Kino Video put an outstanding effort into reconstructing a more complete, better looking, and better sounding version than has existed since the very first days of the film's life in Berlin. This is an astonishing work of art and all the more so with Kino's optimized version.
Historical Background: There was a time, from about 1919 to 1932, when the films coming out of Germany were the finest in the world. The filmmakers there picked up on the influential twentieth century movement called expressionism that had already impacted painting, sculpture, literature, and drama. The idea behind expressionism was to depict the inner life of humanity rather than merely its outward manifestation. The means by which expressionism was realized in cinema was through heavy use of symbolism, stereotypical characters, and highly stylized sets, camera angles, lighting, and acting. Oftentimes, the films of this style emphasized grotesque or fantastical elements. The floodgates of expressionism in German cinema were thrown wide open by Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). Other leading contributors to the movement included Paul Wegener (The Golem (1920)), F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926)), Paul Leni (Waxworks (1924)), and Fritz Lang. Lang's great contributions in this vein included Between Two Worlds (1921), Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), and Metropolis (1927).
By the time Lang completed Metropolis, the silent film era was drawing to a close. Lang adapted well and quickly to the advent of sound, directing the masterpieces M in 1931 and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse in 1933. Shortly after completing the latter film, Lang fled Germany, after being invited by Goebbels to take over the German film industry for the purpose of producing propaganda films. Lang’s wife, actress Thea Von Harbou, was an active supporter of the Nazis but his mother was a Jew. Despite Goebbels’ “assurances” that “We while decide who is and is not a Jew”, Lang left and did not to return until the 1950s. He and Harbou were soon divorced. He spent several years working in Hollywood and had his greatest success there with noir films, such as The Big Heat (1953), with Lee Marvin.
Metropolis was and is a truly remarkable film. It was the first great science fiction movie and the model for much of what followed in that genre, right up to the present time. Certainly its influence is evident in such films as Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, The Matrix, and Brazil. The mechanical right hand of one of the characters was later imitated in both Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Dr. No. At the time of its making, Metropolis was the most expensive film ever made, costing about seven million marks, which would be about $200 million adjusted to today's U.S. currency. That price tag is all the more amazing when one considers that the German economy was in dire straights, at the time, because of the war reparations imposed on the country and the resultant hyperinflation. One wonders how the studios were able to muster that kind of cash outlay in such difficult times. The film used some 37,000 extras and absorbed the full resources of two entire studios, nearly bankrupting both when the film failed to perform well at the box-office.
The Story: It is the year 2026. In the futuristic city of Metropolis, the population is split between the idle rich and enslaved workers. High above ground, the sons of the upper class frolic in the lap of luxury, in the idyllic Eternal Gardens, cavorting with willing maidens. Beneath the surface, in the bowels of the city, the workers struggle through exhausting ten hours shifts, maintaining the complex machines that support the modern city overhead, where aerial speedways interdigitate with the clouds and the brightly lit, angular skyscrapers. One of the most privileged sons is Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), son of the malevolent master of the city, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder is an idealistic, young liberal whose journey of discovery begins when a saintly, ethereal beauty, Maria (Brigette Helm), pale and blond, suddenly appears in the Garden with a flock of raggedy children, belonging to the poor workers below. She invites the wealthy scions to gaze upon their hapless brothers and sisters. Freder is deeply moved by both her beauty and her nobility of purpose.
Freder chases after Maria, into the underworld, but there he observes a massive explosion (from an act of sabotage) and hordes of sullen workers being herded into the mouth of Moloch, to a fiery hellhole that lies beyond. Freder rushes to his father's command center to confront him about what he has just observed. Joh is distressed by what his son reports, but mainly only because he has to learn about it first from his son rather than from his assistant, Josaphat (Theodore Loos). Josaphat is fired for his incompetence, which is devastating because it means that he, too, will be sent below to work on the machines. Freder follows after Josaphat, just in time to prevent him from committing suicide. Freder asks Josaphat to go home and wait for him while he travels to the netherworld to join the workers for a shift, to learn more fully what their lot is like. Freder meets worker #11811, Georgy (Erwin Biswanger), and takes his spot operating a strange clock-like machine, performing what seems to be exhausting but pointless work. At the end of the shift, Freder follows other workers into the catacombs where they listen attentively to the inspirational words of Maria. She urges them to await the imminent arrival of a savior – a mediator – who will help free them from their dismal lot. Maria recognizes Freder as the anticipated one.
Meanwhile, Joh instructs his chief operative, Thin Man (Fritz Rasp), also called "Slim," to follow Freder and report his activities. Joh then heads over to a ginger-bread shaped abode, which is the home of Rotwang (Rudof Klein-Rogge), a wild-eyed inventor, who is both ally and rival of Joh. Joh and Rotwang had once vied for the same woman, the now-deceased Hel. Joh seeks Rotwang's advice about some drawings that have been confiscated from some of the disgruntled workers. Rotwang informs him that they are maps of the ancient catacombs that lie beneath even the machine rooms. Joh also learns that Rotwang is in the final stages of building a mechanical reproduction of Nel – what we would nowadays call an android. (The android looks very much like a female version of the character C3PO of Star Wars, with conical boobs.) Joh asks Rotwang to make the robot the spitting image of Maria, instead, so the robot can exploit Maria's influence over the workers, to incite them to violent action, so that the conspirators can then be liquidated.
In a harrowing scene, Rotwang pursues and subdues Maria, taking her to his laboratory in order to transfer her visage to his mechanical woman. It a magnificent transformation scene, Rotwang creates the "false Maria," a sneering, evil-eyed vixen, but otherwise a dead ringer for the real Maria. Freder shows up hoping to rescue Maria, but Rotwang tells him that she is now with his father. At his father's office, Freder finds Maria embracing his father and the Oedipal-like shock sends him reeling into psychosis. The false Maria, meanwhile, heads to the city's entertainment district where she entertains the revelers with a sensuous strip tease and wild erotic dancing.
The false Maria incites the workers into violent rebellion. They storm one of the crucial machines, the "heart machine," overpowering the superintendent, Grot (Heinrich George). They destroy the machine, which is folly, since it is the machine that prevents the flooding of the city where the workers live. Fortunately, Maria and Freder are on hand to save the children and lead them to an airshaft through which they can make their way safely to the surface. The workers, imagining that their children have perished, are determined to exact revenge on Maria, whom they blame for inciting them into destruction of the machine. They take to the streets in a witch-hunt at about the same time that the revelers are emerging. They seize Maria – fortunately the false one – and tie her to a stake, on top of a funeral pyre. The mob is shocked when they see robotic underpinnings revealed as her flesh burns away.
Meanwhile, the real Maria is lurking in the shadows, having barely escaped the wrath of the mob herself. So too is Rotwang, who, in his frenzy, now believes her to be his beloved Hel. He chases after her and spirits her away to the apex of the steep roof, atop the cathedral. Freder is soon in pursuit and struggles with Rotwang as Maria teeters precariously along the side of the roof, barely hanging onto a rail. Down below, Joh, who at least loves his son (if no one else), watches the rooftop struggle, anticipating the worst. How does it turn out? Check the movie out and find out!
Themes: The surface themes of the film seem scarcely worth mentioning because of their extreme shallowness and naivety. The most overt message amounts to something like "Let's all hold hands and make up!" A title card pops up several times that reads, "There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator." The hands refer to the workers and the brain the executives. Certainly, it's a politically naïve message that few would dare verbalize with a straight face.
The second most evident theme is a kind of anti-science, anti-technology fear of machines and our ever increasingly technological future. It's the inventor who ends up as the chief bad guy in the film, while the industrialist gets off relatively Scot-free. It's hard to see this film as having either a socialist or communist message, considering that the workers are presented as mindless, herd animals while the leader who enslaved them and tried to destroy them is redeemed by as little as a handshake. Metropolis was, reputedly, Hitler's favorite film, though, on the surface, it seems most in sympathy with a liberal concern for the downtrodden.
Production Values: The script for this film was co-written by Lang and his screenwriter wife, Thea von Harbou, based on her novel Metropolis. Although political issues are inherent in the class conflicts detailed in the film, the political message is so thoroughly muddled that the film has been denounced, at one time or another, by fascists, communists, and capitalists alike. Part of the uncertainly about the film's political viewpoint is likely related to the fact that Lang was something of a leftist while his wife was a Prussian aristocrat who would later actively support the Nazis. The other part of the confusion is simply that the film is not mainly a message kind of film. The plot has a comic book kind of cliché-driven simplicity. Think about films like Star Wars and Batman and you'll have a pretty good notion of the silliness of the storyline. Every conceivable symbol and cliché is brought to bear. There are shades of Orpheus and Oedipus, Biblical references to spare (the Tower of Babel, Noah's Flood, Crucifixion, the Whore of Babylon, John the Baptist anointing Jesus), and parallels to Frankenstein, Gargoyles, the mouth of Moloch, and Joan of Arc. On the psychosexual level, there's a dead woman fetish and a linkage drawn between technology and female sexuality, both rampaging out of control. Metropolis is like a great meeting house where all of the world's clichés have gathered together for a grand festival.
The film's real value derives not from plot but from the aesthetics of the images. Visually, Metropolis is triumphant in its splendor. The sets by Edgar G. Ulmer are dizzying in their detail and among the most creatively imaginative that you'll ever see. It's an architectural fantasy. The quality of the special effects is utterly amazing for 1926/7 and competitive, in their own way, with anything you've seen in the likes of The Matrix. Most of the sets were built using so-called forced perspective, with the parts receding into the background built smaller to give the appearance of greater scope.
Some viewers will mistakenly judge the acting in this film as poor because the expressionistic style that was in vogue strikes modern viewers as grotesquely exaggerated and unsubtle. Given the intents of expressionism, the histrionic performances in this film are exactly what the style demanded and are superlative. Brigitte Helm is the standout, playing both the angelic Maria and the demonic, malicious false Maria. There's never a moment's doubt whether she is the one or the other because her eye movements and facial expressions make it abundantly clear. Helm later appeared in L''Atlantide (1932). Gustav Fröhlich is excellent as Freder. He, too, employed the hallmark extremes of facial expression and physical performance. Alfred Abel provides an effective contrast to most of the other performers, playing his part with cool restraint. Abel previously appeared in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922).
The Kino DVD of this film resulted from an extensive restoration process. The original version of Metropolis was never screened outside of Berlin. Almost immediately after its release, the film was chopped up by various editors, in a variety of ways, to shorten the film, on the assumption that the public's apathy toward it was related to the original film's 2.5-hour length. Versions as short as 80 minutes emerged, but none of those that circulated were as much as two hours long. Lang was distraught over the butchering of his film and once claimed that the real "Metropolis no longer exists." After scouring all of the major archives around the world, Kino was able to piece together, painstakingly, a version totaling 124 minutes, still well shy of the original length, but a major improvement over all previous versions. They also judiciously inserted title cards that flesh out the parts of the story corresponding to still missing scenes. Kino also restored the beautiful black-and-white photography of Karl Freund and Gunther Rittau and reinserted the original glorious soundtrack by Gottfried Huppertz. The DVD includes several valuable extras, including a featurette on the restoration process and a 45-minute documentary placing the film in its historical context. There's also a high-quality gallery of stills, for both the production and some missing scenes. There's an audio commentary tract, in German with English subtitles, as well.
Bottom-Line:Metropolis is one of the most influential films of all time, but there's a far better reason to check it out. It is utterly mesmerizing and exciting, words that don't typically spring to mind in describing films from the silent era. This film is every bit as exciting and as entertaining as modern day sci-fi thrillers. There's romance, eroticism, catastrophe, violence, politics, great expressionistic performances, and dazzlingly eerie sets and special effects, all wrapped up in a fantastic package. This is a film that will stir your imagination and leave you mulling it over for several days.
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