Metropolis - Film Review

Metropolis Review - Director: Fritz Lang

From the very early scenes and throughout the film we begin to get a feel for the environment that it is set in. The film was made in 1927 and the high rise, geometric buildings in the busy city environment would have been a very futuristic idea of life at the time of the film’s production. It is scarily similar to today’s urban areas (Figure 1) and a viewer watching the film today would not have much of a reaction / opinion on the setting as this looks like a normal street scene from the 21^st century. 

 

                                                                            Figure 1

Figure 2                              





                                                                                                                                                                                                           Figure 3

The Robot-Maria that Rotwang creates has also been very influential in today’s world. A couple of examples are the Cybermen in BBC’s Dr Who series (Figure 2) and pop icon Beyonce, who dressed in a costume almost exactly identical to the robot in Metropolis for one of her performances (Figure 3). Both examples were used to give a sense of power / domination.  

           

                                                                                                                                 

The tall, empowering buildings represent the power and domination of the wealthy inhabitants to the workers below the city. Ruler of the city Joh Frederson “looks out from his office in the Tower of Babel at a modern, highly technicized world.” This shows empowerment and success.

Quote:

http://metropolis1927.com/

Images:

Dr Who’s Cybermen - http://www.scifiscience.co.uk/extras/top10/villains/cybermen.html

City / Tower of Babel – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metropolis-new-tower-of-babel.png

Beyonce - http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/the-occult-symbolism-of-movie-metropolis-and-its-importance-in-pop-culture/