(5/5)

Before I get into the full review of this, I have a directive: GO SEE this restored version of Metropolis if and when it tours through your city. It’s opening in Los Angeles next week and then touring around various cities after that (full schedule here). There, now even if you don’t click through the read the rest of this, my main point has been made.

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has been lauded as a high point of science fiction, silent cinema, German cinema, and Expressionist style almost since it was first released in 1927. And since its release in 1927, that has been true despite the fact that it was edited rather severely almost immediately after release, and nearly 30 minutes of its original run time has been lost for decades. In what I’m sure will go down as one of the greatest footage discovery stories in restoration history, a print of the film containing almost all of this lost footage was found in Buenos Aires in 2008, and preservationists have been working to restore it ever since. The footage is from a 16mm print and was in pretty bad shape when they found it; as such, it’s easy to tell which sections are from the Buenos Aires print because they’re in noticeably worse condition. But that makes it all the easier to tell which footage is new and laud the restoration of it, because it really does make a big difference in the flow of the film.

I’ve seen Metropolis a couple of times at home before, and you know, liked it a good bit, but it never really blew me away. This time, it was a good half hour after it was over before I could properly walk and talk; it was that overwhelming an experience. There are a lot of things that contributed to my reaction, I’m sure – seeing it on a giant screen, with a very nearly sold-out audience, the incredible live score performance by the Alloy Orchestra, the better pacing and more involving story the restored footage provides, my own greater understanding of silent cinema – but I’m not sure it really matters. This viewing of Metropolis has easily become the most incredible cinematic experience in my life so far.

The story is a classic industrial revolution sci-fi tale – the city of Metropolis is two cities in one: an upper city of art deco skyscrapers and beautiful gardens populated by the intelligentsia, and a lower city of machines and workers that toil away in tedium and darkness to allow the upper city to enjoy the benefits. Freder, son of the upper city’s leader Joh Frederson, frolics in the gardens, unaware of the city beneath until the lovely Maria bursts through the doors that separate the two, bringing with her a group of workers’ children and crying out against the unjustice. Freder investigates and ends up joining the workers, hoping he can be the heart that brings the head and the hands together, the messiah promised in the film’s admittedly sentimental tagline. Frederson has a plan of his own to use a newly developed robot in Maria’s likeness to deal with the looming worker’s revolt, and everything escalates from there.

But though the plot is fairly solid stuff, pulling on a lot of common themes in late nineteenth, early twentieth-century literature and almost codifying the entire dichotomy of the industrial revolution and its tendency to view workers as machinery, the thing you’ll remember from this film are its incredible visuals. Hundreds and thousands of workers shuffling anonymously from point A to point B. Freder’s vision of the heart machine as a giant monster devouring the workers. A terrified Maria fleeing from the inventor who must capture her to imprint her likeness on the robot. The futuristic grandeur of the upper city and the terrible beauty of the machines. The robot Maria dancing maniacally, inciting both upper town and lower town inhabitants to their doom. The real Maria desperately trying to sound the alarm for a flooded workers’ city.

There are other films that perhaps display the German Expressionist style in a more exaggerated manner (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for example), but I’m not aware of any others that use their design as effectively in integrating story, character, themes, and overall look and feel. Everything contributes to everything else here, and the overall effect is staggering. Especially when combined with the magnificent score that The Alloy Orchestra performed along with it here; judging from the trailer embedded below, it looks as though Kino is using the original Gottfried Huppertz score on the regular tour and DVD/blu-ray, but hopefully this Alloy Orchestra score will be included as well. If you get the opportunity to see the film with them performing live, be DOUBLY sure not to miss it.

The new footage is scattered throughout the film; as I said, it’s easy to tell the difference because it’s not in as good a shape as the rest. Also it’s 16mm and was never matted properly for the screen when it was made, so it’s a little smaller in size than the rest of the film. But this is only a little distracting, and it adds back in a little subplot with the worker that Freder replaces when he first goes down into the undercity, and also adds back in a lot of footage of The Thin Man, Frederson’s dastardly henchman. In addition to those large sections, there are new insets of a few seconds here and there, adding cutbacks and reaction shots as well as just lengthening some shots a bit. It’s been a while since I saw the previous version, but just estimating what it would be like without those very small sections, it seems as though the film is probably better paced now, despite being almost half an hour longer, and seemed to give a better connection to the characters. There is still one missing section that may never be found, though, which they fill in with a title card explaining (based on German censorship log notes) what was in those scenes.

All in all, this is a splendid film that’s now even more splendid, and it deserves to be seen on as big a screen as possible. Trust me, its 83-year-old visuals have lost none of their power and will blow you away. Even if you’re tempted to snicker at some of the acting styles, you likely won’t for long – the film’s power is such that it sweeps you along with it, always hurtling toward the next scene with an intensity that belies its now almost three-hour running time. I almost literally can’t wait to see it again.