Lang had a vision of the year 2000 and made a film of it in 1927. This makes “Metropolis” a science-fiction film of course. Inspired by the Manhatten skyline, Fritz created a ‘worker’s city’ with skyscrapers, but this city is deep underground. The working men live in the underworld, while the rich people live in the upper world. Both worlds are governed by Joh Fredersen. Fredersen’s son falls in love with a woman and becomes concerned by the fate of the workers. These workers have put their hope in a visionary woman, but a failed trick of Fredersen, the workers start to rebel against ‘the machines’ (and the rich people, Fredersen in particular) causing the destruction of their own city.
Being 80 years old, “Metropolis” is a non-speaking film with very bombastic music and images with texts for explanation or what someone says. During the years the original film crumbled and got lost for 25%. According to the makers of the DVD version that I saw, their version comes closest to the original. Inspite of the loss of a large part of the film, it still takes 2 hours. The film itself is alright. The production was massive (over 37.000 people cooperated!), the stages are nice, expecially for that time and the nazis liked it so much that they asked Lang to make their films. Lang fled to Hollywood, making more films for another 30 years. A classic that you may want to see some time.