Metropolis (1927)
First time seeing this epic and I will be honest as I usually am, I found most of this very boring haha! I knew it was a silent pic and black n white of course, even better!, but the plot in this is totally not what I expected. I always thought this was a kind of 'Frankenstein' story, creation of a robot, but it turns out its actually partly that but more so based around a religious theme of a woman (almost akin to Moses and worshipped as a saviour) leading the lowly workers to revolt against the high and mighty city planners which then proceeds to turn to a disaster movie and then ends with a Gothic horror type finale in the realms of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.
Its hard to take the whole film in as its very complicated with all its messages, themes and metaphors which are both obvious and hidden, the characters are all very well portrayed and much deeper than you expect as the film progresses although the lack of wording (missing or taken out?) makes it hard to follow and pick up all the information you need, a read on IMDb may be required.
The real reason to watch this film is of course the visuals, stunts and musical score, where to begin!?
The score is an opera, its first rate, top class, its as good as any known Hollywood musical and practically tells the story on its own...which its suppose to do I might add. Every person and every event is recorded with the perfect tune/note/theme tune which guides you along the way as if you were listening to a classical orchestral piece.
The visuals and design of the film are the real stand out spectacles with absolutely incredible special effects ranging from model work to matte painting to create a blend of crafts that truly puts some modern films to shame and this was in 1927 remember! The stark harsh black and white contrast adds to the German expressionism to give it that Gothic, gloomy yet quite realistic feel which I really believe would be lost in colour, the camera angles and forced perspective used to create the towering skyscrapers and sprawling jungle of buildings is simply perfect, you just can't fault it and its so very easy to see where many top directors of the biggest sci-fi and Gothic films in history have gotten their inspiration, but I don't blame them for one minute.
Not only the city impresses, the costumes worn by the city planners and their leader 'Fredersen' don't appear dated too much...just smart basic and believeable whilst the set designs and future work on show are pretty accurate of our age and do look really nice (video phone), the offices and building layouts just look right, liveable, clean and well thought out, much like first impressions of 'Blade Runner'.
All this without even mentioning the near perfect body suit used to create the robot 'Maria'! the sculpture work is iconic and begs to be worshipped! not only does it look like a real working robot but the actress inside gives a beautiful silent, slow performance with hardly any effort used, merely standing and walking but giving everything to the suit to make it work on every level, the scientists lab around her is gorgeous looking too and those now memorable assending/descending glowing halo's that surround Maria as she sits are the icing on the sci-fi cake
( now of course the stuff of the classic B-movie)
Not only are the effects amazing but the stunt work during the second half of the film is quite risky and daring to say the least, as the machines crumble after the workers revolt the sets come crashing down in eye widening sequences, the huge props fall apart and chuff out smoke whilst the flooding scenes mix neat model shots with quite large sets and huge amounts of extras used (there are some quite stunning scenes with masses of extras used during the film all without the use of cgi making them very special indeed). Some of the sets must have been vast or at least give that impression, many sequences look like stage sets in a theatre with some props taking up almost all the space with their realistic scale, it really does stun you to see it.
A historic film that defies belief, everything is so well done, such precision work and so old you just wonder how film makers can make such trash these days. The story is boring and alittle hard to follow I have to say, lots of odd images, ideas and character arch's going on which isn't surprising seeing as its getting close to a hundred years old (83 so far) but you watch for the craftsmanship on display, the effects, lighting, camera angles, set designs, models, costumes...all these deserve to be viewed and shown or taught...this is the art of proper film making.
