Metropolis

I wanted to watch something special for my 500th logged film. Boy, was I unprepared for what I have just witnessed! It will take me years to unravel the symbolism of this film! The story being told here might just be the most important of the 20th century, because it is the story of the 20th century! I can’t believe I’m saying this but, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai have nothing on this film. It is leagues beyond anything else. To think about the time and place when this was made. (Speaking of which, some of these visuals must have inspired a young German man with a very distinct mustache.) Germany is at the crux of the ancient and the futuristic. They are industrializing at the same time that they are flooded with Mesopotamian and Egyptian artefacts, and it shows in this film. The city is presented as New Babylon, and the devouring machine god: Moloch, served by his middle-management bureaucrat priests. Even The banks are merely the instruments of Mammon. Above it all is the god-king utopian architect in his Tower of Babel. None of which can contend in evil or in might with the spirit of Ishtar that has begun to grip the rabid masses of the proletariat down in their hellish ghetto. Just as when the Ishtar gate was paraded around pre-war Germany, this film is the ultimate realization of the meaning behind that era. Even in all their technological advancement, mankind is still a slave to the old heathen gods. It’s also worth mentioning that this is my first silent film. The purity of this format! The purity! It’s so efficient, but not in a soulless utilitarian way, instead in an uncompromising artistic way. The story being told just through striking visuals and musical splendor! Watching the version with the restored score is a must. The only dialog necessary is simply the most important part of every conversation, with the rest being told through expressions. I could not have chosen something better to celebrate my Pentacentennial film. Maybe I’ll do Seventh Seal for my thousandth. It’s the book of revelation told in an Art-Deco dreamscape… or nightmare. 10/10 Pure Kino, No Exaggeration.