Film Watch: Metropolis (1927)

Metropolis is the story of Freder Frederson, the son of industrialist Jon Frederson, who runs Metropolis. Jon meets the mysterious young woman, Mariah, and follows her into the lower depths of the undercity. There he discovers the exploited workers who suffer in order to kee his father's city working.  Mariah appears before the people and promises a 'mediator' who will forge communication between the workers and the industrialists.

Upon discovering this, Jon Frederson approaches the scientist Rotwang, who has invented a machine man. Jon gets Rotwang to transform his machine man into a version of Mariah. This fake Mariah causes the workers to rise up and destroy Metropolis. Freder rescues the real Mariah, helps to quell the revolution and, unsurprisingly, becomes the mediator between his father and the workers.

The film carries with it a fairly obvious theme of workers exploited by big businessman. The revolution is shown to be a bad thing and at the end of the day, the businessman is allowed to live with no recriminations. It can feel a little mawkish at times, but it's still a relevant message.

This film took many months to make and the effort definitely shows int he final product. There is a great abundance of stunning studio locations, from the recreational park at the beginning, the steam ridden hellish world of the undercity to other things. Mariah's retelling of the tower of babel story is also a fairly interesting scene, The Machine Man is a striking creation and would go on to influence the design of C-3PO in 1977's Star Wars. There is also a wonderful dream like quality to the film with Rotwang's house feeling bigger on the inside with various doors that open and close of their own accord.

Given that this is a silent film, the characters are, by necessity, very broad so that their personalities are clear to the audience. Freder is the ernest and emotional young man, Jon is the cold hearted industrialist. Rotwang is a fairly typical mad scientist. Mariah could be seen as interesting in leading the people, but she is kidnapped and replaced by  he machine man, the real Mariah becomes a damsel in distress to be rescued by the male characters.

9/10