M

I don't know how to feel about the fact that a film that came out ninety six years ago is, even by today's standards, one of the best movies I have watched this year. For a time period when "talkies" was just starting to becoming a thing, Fritz Lang's M is one hell of an experimentation. How can this be Lang's first talkie?? It is quite unbelievable what he is able to achieve with sound. From alerting the arrival of the killer with the whistling of the song "In the Hall of the Mountain King", to the use of dialog and sound only when needed was a usage of the new concept of sound in a way, unprecedented. This radical use of sound back then would pave the way for modern thrillers to use sound as sonic identifiers, where sound will proceed violence. The narrative structure is no less brilliant. For a film about murder and catching a killer on the loose, the movie has almost no violence. All the killings and disappearances happen off-screen, with cut-aways and reactions of the aftermath for the audience to make connection. These techniques again paved the way for scenes in modern psychological horror. The film refuses to build toward a spectacle instead chooses to skip murders as well as dramatic chases, and creating dread and anxiety from long soundless shots. The camerawork and composition doesn't even feel ancient, with frame-in-frame shots, camera moving in through a window as well as long tracking shots. Really impressive for the 30s. The plot handling is unique as well. It doesn't just show the police-criminal's relationship as black and white, instead making the whole society the protagonists, with sequences cutting in action between the two drawing paralleles to how similar their approaches but how different their motives are. As for the criminal, he's not just treated as a spectacle, rather as a "person of interest" literally- revealed early on, exploration of his mannerisms, moderus operandi as well as a "reason". The criminal is not treated as just a wrong-doer of others, but a victim of himself as well - one of the earliest depiction of a mentally-ill criminal individual, with the murderer given a full psychological defense. The monologue in the end asks the audience to not just react, but understand as well, blurring the line between evil and illness, which even by today's standards, is deeply uncomforting. The end brings to us nothing usual - no triumph, no satisfaction but rather a deep thought, a sentiment of social grief when we hear, "This won't bring our children back." Just a really, really good film. Technical marvel, sharply written and engaging throughout. A must watch. Timeless masterpiece in my opinion.