I last watched ‘Metropolis’ about 15-20 years ago when beginning to dip my toe into ‘Silent era’ cinema. Having had a somewhat positive experience with ‘Nosferatu’ I decided that jumping into a film that, even to this day, is lauded as a revolutionary work of science fiction, Was probably the best next logical step.
Unfortunately; at the time, I didnt realise the intricate history of ‘Metropolis’ “Print status” I’d really just assumed that there were maybe one or two cuts of the film circulating in different quality levels, and that it didnt really matter what you put on because, at its core, its still the same movie.
This proved to be a HUGE mistake on my part, as I just grabbed the nearest available copy of ‘Metropolis’ that I had, which was a random ‘public domain’ print found on one of those old Mill Creek ’50 SCI-FI CLASSICS’ sets…The print was heavily washed out, VERY damaged, made up largely of still photos and having now actually taken the time to look into the situation ‘Metropolis’ uniquely holds. VERY badly edited. By the time the end credits rolled around I had almost NO idea why this film had EVER been successful, I had NO idea what was going on, and I cursed the wasted 90-110 minutes i’d given to sit through it.
Well, jump forward to this year, and Kino Lobar was having a sale on most of their titles, and I spotted ‘The Complete Metropolis’ among the titles on discount. Curious to see what the dillio was with it, I inevitably fell down a rabbit hole, that ultimately led me to pick up ‘The Complete Metropolis’ and to give the film another chance.
For those uninitiated, ‘Metropolis’ premiered in 1927 with a 153 minute cut that nearly bankrupted the studio Fritz Lang produced it for, but ultimately was a rowsing success in Europe, putting Langs name on the map. But when it came to international distribution, Paramount Pictures wernt happy with the runtime for ‘Metropolis’ nor were they particularly thrilled with the core plot and beliefs of the film, which is rife with socialist, marxist, anti capitalist rhetoric.
So, Paramount had Lang cut the film down, then, Paramount themselves cut the film down…and THEN local distributors across the Americas, parts of Europe and Asia would cut the film down AGAIN. Leaving GOD knows how many ‘alternate’ cuts of ‘Metropolis’ in circulation. The original unedited ‘Premiere’ cut of the film was pretty much lost to time, as was most of the production notes for the film including scripts…and so for a time, noone ACTUALLY knew how long or short ‘Metropolis’ was ACTUALLY supposed to be…Oh…and for reference? by the time ‘Metropolis’ finally DID hit the US, ‘The Jazz Singer’ came out and pretty much destroyed it at the box office. *womp womp*
In 1968 a 4 year project was launched to try and restore the film to its longest possible runtime, which, due to the lack of production materials made it very difficult to figure out exactly what scenes went where and how close they were to actually completing the film. Then in 1984, after a bidding war with David Bowie for the rights, Georgio Moroder did a further restoration, increasing the runtime further, but in the process adding new effects, tinting the film and adding a completely new soundtrack. For a time this was considered the most ‘complete’ version of the film…even if it had technically been ‘George Lucas’d’ in the process…
Then in 2001, with new resources, another attempt was made at producing a ‘definitive’ cut of ‘Metropolis’ which garnered even more footgae to be returned. alongside the first recording of the original score to the film, a score that hadnt been heard since its 1927 premiere. Doing this really helped the restoration team, as, without a script to work from to piece together the various fragments. the score (which included scene timings) was used as a base with which the footage for the film sat on top and kept pace.
But that brings us to ‘The Complete Metropolis’, released in 2010, after the recovery of a print from Argentina that contained a whopping 25 minutes of previously lost footage, almost a fifth of the films full runtime. It was in TERRIBLE shape (essentially it was a absolutely trashed 35mm print, copied for safety to 16mm with no pre-cleaning…its rough to say the least) But it allowed the restoration teams the opportunity to rearrange the film back into its correct order, to remove a lot of caption cards, and; barring a remaining 5 minutes or so of missing footage (a scene set in a church, a brief fight sequence and approx 30 seconds of stray frames across the whole films runtime) It allowed, for the first time in 83 years for Langs original vision to be seen as close to as intended as possible.
Can I say hand on heart that this is an immaculate restoration? Given the sources for the footage, honestly; its astounding. But if you didnt KNOW the journey that this films been on to look even REMOTELY how it does in this 2010 remaster, you’d think they hadnt bothered restoring it. where the footage was preserved and in good quality, it looks phenominal. But that Argentinian footage (which again, I cannot stress enough how much of a miracle they’ve worked on restoring it) is jarring to say the least, with ‘rain like’ tramlines running down the majority of the frame and, due to shots being reframed in the argentinian print, huge black barrings all over the frame where segments had been cropped out. Its rough…a miracle…but rough.
Nontheless, I decided to give ‘Metropolis’ another chance, and I absolutely do not regret my decision to do that. The ‘Complete’ cut brings with it ACTUAL plotting a pacing, and feels SO much less like a super8mm highlights reel, and SO much more like how people had always described it to me. A miraculous work for the time, This is a work that was AT LEAST 40 years ahead of its time. and an ‘Epic’ in every sense of the word.
The films set in a ‘not too distant’ dystopic future where society has fallen into two classes, an underground ‘Worker’ class who live in large underground cities and power ‘The Machines’. and an above ground affluent society who strive and grow off the backs of the ‘Workers’ who’s machines power ‘Metropolis’ an illuminated utopia likened to the original ‘Tower of Babel’.
The film (somewhat crudely I feel) splits these two factions into ‘The Hands’ (the workers), and ‘The Brains’ who are the teams who manage the workers and help further expand the business of ‘Metropolis’. The workers children are forced to stay at home and do chores until they’re old enough to work, and non of the ‘workers’ are allowed to leave their undercity. meanwhile, the children of ‘Metropolis’ are academically bread to take up the mantle of their fathers and mothers within the city, and spend their days idilically engaging in sports, academia…and seemingly in the case of the gents, chasing petticoated ladies around gorgeous royal gardens.
Our story specifically follows the ‘Fredersens’ Jon and Freder. Freder is Jons son and, as mentioned…being a young adult in ‘Metropolis’ is pretty blissful. But during one of his regular ”idillic garden chases’ he’s stopped by a young woman shrouded with children in rags who she refers to as his ‘brothers and sisters’ before being escorted away. Captivated by the intense beauty of this mysterious woman, Freder decides to leave the gardens and hunt this woman down.
After some searching he finds himself in the undercity and witnesses a horrendous accident caused by the exhausted workforce. Traumatized by the absolute abuse of these people and sights he’d never previously seen, he rushes to speak to his father Jon about the incident, who’s dismissive of him, and more upset that his secretary Johnasen didnt know anything about the work incident.
It becomes quite clear that Jon is a ruthless and tyranical business owner purposfully surpressing the working class to help further line his pockets and keep the business of ‘Metropolis’ expanding, and that no number of lives cost will be enough to shake him from that mindset. So, Freder decides to head back into the undercity to further see how the workers live.
Where he finds abhorrent living condtions, workers constantly on the brink of collapse, death, sickness and worse. Swapping place with an exhausted worker, he learns that the workers are in fact organising, and later that night in the catacombs below the workers city, Freder heads down with his fellow brothers and comes face to face once again with the mysterious woman from the gardens, ‘Maria’.
Maria leads with the mantra ‘The Mediator between the head and hands MUST be the heart’ a call to the workers to not give in to mindless violence at the horrendousness of their situation, but instead to look for compromise and understanding with the folks above to find a new way of working that doesnt surpress workers rights, while also allowing greater opportunities for the underclass. Freder is captivated, and on approaching Maria, she confirms that she firmly believes HE is in fact ‘the heart’ that will ultimately help broker a new era of prosperity between the workers and the residents of ‘Metropolis’
Meanwhile Jon recieves two ‘diagrams’ from the pockets of deceased workers, and…unable to figure out what they are, he visits the loca ‘mad scientist’ for this film ‘Rotwang’. Here its revealed that Rotwang was once in love with a woman named ‘Hel’ who left him to marry Jon and who died while giving birth to Freder. Rotwang informs Jon that the diagrams are in fact maps of the catacombs and that the workers clearly seem to be congregating for something. Before revealing his latest invention, a machine man he hopes will allow him to ressurect ‘Hel’ for himself, arguing that Jon lost Hel and gained Freder, and he intends to have Hel again.
Jon and Rotwang follow the maps and arrive at the latest meeting of Maria and the workers, on hearing their plan for a peaceful protest. Jon is horrified and orders Rotwang to give the machine man the face of Maria instead of Hel, to kidnap Maria, and use the Machine Maria to lead the workers into a full blown uprising of Metropolis, giving Jon enough manufactured consent to retaliate on the workers and further surpress them.
But unbenownst to Jon, Rotwang has his own plans and programmes the machine man to not only lead an uprising of the workers, but to corrupt and deconstruct the residents of Metropolis too by causing them to fight amongst themselves…with the ultimate goal being the destruction of the undercity, Metropolis, Jon and Freder so that only Rotwang and his automaton remain. With their fowl machinations in place, it will fall down to Freder, Josephat and a handful of helpful souls to try and rescue Maria, halt the uprising and save Metropolis before the corrupted Maria runs BOTH sides of the city into the ground.
And now having seen the full film as near enough to as intended, I can absolutely see why this film was praised as heavily as it was both at the time, and in the present. I would honestly stop short of calling this film ‘witchcraft’ because, for 1927? the effects, cinematography, tone and style displayed is UNREAL. it feels like a film that fell out of a parallel reality.
Given all the lead up to this point in my review, I dont want to shorthand things too much, but honestly, there is VERY little I actually disliked about this film.
The direction is astounding, genuinely ahead of its time not only in the way that scenes flow effortlessly to and from one another, but in the effects used, which again, for 1927 were INSANE. the cast direction and set design which feels like Lang took the german expressionist movement and postulated ‘What if this, but in the 32nd century?’ It all just hangs together so flawlessly, the effortlessness with which Lang commits not just art, but revolutions within the medium of the art is frankly breath taking. I found myself in awe of the production, only pausing to occasionally realise that some of the most iconic cinema of the last 70 years had clearly been inspired by the actions of this one production.
Given its timing in the move between silent to ‘talkie’ cinema, ‘Metropolis’ feels like a evolutionary apex, the peak of this kind of film making, and a shock to the standard medium that I genuinely do not believe I will see again. This film is as important to film history as the move from acoustic to electric for music, or the dadaist movement to litrerature and painting. An entire MOVEMENT and way of working reinforced and baked into a single work. Incredible.
The lighting? phenominal, the effects work? phenominal,the cinematography? while hard to say on the rougher restoration footage, what is here is incredible. Set design? Phenominal, the performances?! GENUINELY haunting in places, exaggeratory in all the best ways and truthfully remarkable, you will see faces and performances in this film that take on an almost etherial quality. which, when married up to the absolutely gorgeous scoring of Gottfried Huppertz, creates an atmosphere unlike anything i’ve encountered before.
The issues that I have with this film are few and far between, but do ultimately stop me from giving this film full marks (or as close to full marks as i’d be willing to give) and almost all of them lie in the scripting.
Chief amongst is the runtime itself. While I appreciate that this is a work from a different time, and that silent era cinema was often treated as a ‘night out’ in every sense of the word. at 2 hours and 33 minutes long. I feel the film overstays its welcome by about 10-15 minutes narratively. A lot of scenes are drawn out, and I appreciate that audiences back then needed a bit of extra handholding to get them through this new(ish) medium. But in 2025, with my fried attention span, I started to struggle by the halfway point when a basic ‘escape’ scene was taking 2-3 times longer than it needed to. And im generally a quite patient person, so I have NO idea how modern audiences would percieve this film.
In addition, clocking in at over 150 minutes, means that I probably wont get the time to revisit this classic very often, as these days I struggle to fit a 100 minute film in…letalone 150 minutes. which is a shame as I feel had it run even to 120 minutes, there would be way more of a chance that I could squeeze it in somewhere…
While the plotting itself is pretty solid, the characters engaging and the act structuring *slightly* lopsided, but utlimately well paced out. the other issue I had with the film was its somewhat mixed messaging on its core values. The film clearly portrays anti-capitalist, pro socialist sentiment. Hell; the entire films plot revolves around the son of a capitalist discovering the exploitation of the worker for profit and spending the rest of the film trying to bring humanity and empathy to the capitalists, while trying to give the worker a sense of value and equity better balanced against the capitalists.
However; as a socialist myself, I struggled a bit with the way the film attempts to realise this vision, essentially portraying the capitalists as folks who would gladly drown an entire city of people for their bottom line…unless one of their children happens to be caught in the crossfire, at which point suddenly OH NO! CAPITALISM BAD?!?
The main plotline of Freder suddenly leading the revolution based on a 10 hour workshift is laughable (you’ll believe a nepo baby can fly!), ‘Good Maria’ and ‘Bad Maria’ are both flawed with their approaches to change, but the idea that ‘Bad Marias’ revolution approach is somehow the ‘evil’ answer given what the capitalists are doing to the underworld workers is again, equally laughable. Not to mention the ‘hands’ and ‘minds’ concept is HORRENDOUSLY classist, assuming that workers cant think and thinkers cant work…
…I feel like Jon as a character in this gets off WAY too lightly, a slimey, abhorrent business man willing to murder workers and children to suit socio political ends, is essentially given an ‘all is forgiven’ ending despite his ‘moment of revelation’ having NOTHING to do with the workers in the undercity and more to do with how his boy, the only remnant Jon has of his deceased wife may be at risk ALSO!
In a just world Jon would have been taken out of the picture in the final act and Josephat would have brokered a new era of piece with the workers promising ‘never again.’ Instead; the film gives a lot of bluster about ‘violence not being the answer’ and ‘the heart will moderate’ before ultimately trying to cram in a ‘both sides’ approach to conflict resolution.
I dont know how the people of metropolis live on past the end of this movie. But I DO know, that if the person im attempting to usher in a new era with was shown to have been complicit in the attempted drowning of all my friends, family and kids…and that he was PROUD of that…well, unless he had a DAMN good reason, it would be the beginning and end of diplomacy.
DESPITE this. I had a very VERY enjoyable time with ‘Metropolis’ and I highly recommend. searching out the ‘Complete’ cut if your curious and want to learn more. Its so close to being a near perfect movie, its scary. and absolutely worth your time in my opinion.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/metropolis/
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