M
TW: child abuse/murder
Such a brilliant, nasty little film. Just as good, if not better than Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and just as important. This was the precursor to film noir with its unconventional editing and cinematography, smoky gritty atmosphere, and constant moral ambiguity. Peter Lorre gives one of the most chilling performances I’ve ever seen as a child murderer/molester. This is one of those 1930s films that could never get made in Hollywood because of its disquieting subject matter. But what makes this film so unsettling is that none of it is shown, it’s all about what we don’t see rather than what we do see, and there’s absolutely no one to trust in the midst of the madness. A must-see masterpiece.
#hbo max