Metropolis
Metropolis
8.397%92%
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Mike reviewedOctober 11, 2024
Metropolis is a silent film that guides you through a diversity of emotions with its beautiful cinematography and score
"Great is the world and its Maker! And great is Man!"
Metropolis was the first silent feature film I have seen and it was a different experience than I had imagined it would be. I loved how strongly the cinematography and score guide your emotions throughout the film. I was guided into a diversity of different emotions that enhanced the scenes. The exaggerated body language and facial expressions also compensated very well for the lack of dialogue and sound effects.
Seeing the story of Metropolis in theaters back in 1927 must have been a revolutionary experience. Watching Metropolis 95 years later is still a great experience. Although the story and plot are pretty old, it still holds up and is very interesting to watch. The plot during the first act was perfect. It gave me an introduction to a world that has an unfamiliar and futuristic feeling to it, which is something a lot of recent science-fiction films lack. Unfortunately the plot dragged a bit during the third act, this is also where the score became a bit repetitive.
The Maschinenmensch was my favorite character. It had a very alien-like feeling to it, this was caused by the slow movements and monotonous expression. I would even say the Maschinenmensch made me feel uncomfortable. Like you know something is off, but you don't exactly know what it is.
The cinematography was absolutely enthralling. Especially the symmetrical compositions looked stunning. Certain scenes used static and symmetrical compositions, combined with the dynamic and synchronized movement of the workers, which resulted in a hypnotic image. The hypnotic scenes were especially present in the beginning of the film. The scene in the first act, where the workers are working on the big machine that transformed into Moloch, is my favorite.
Like mentioned previously, the score guides you through a diversity of emotions. It all does this in perfect harmony with the cinematography, which results in these hypnotic and emotionally powerful scenes. It was very interesting to hear how this score shaped the sound of cinema and influenced some of the biggest composers. The influence on composers like Maurice Jarre and John Williams are maybe the most noticable, especially the latter. While listening to the Metropolis score I heard a lot of similarities with Harry Potter and Star Wars, I even heard similarities with The Godfather and the theme song of The Shining.
I always admire the creativity that was used to achieve special effects in a time where CGI was non-existent. From the transformation of the Maschinemensch to the visualization of a huge group of workers, this film definitely had some creative ways to achieve these special effects.
Read full review at Letterboxd: Mike_v_E