Metropolis (2008) review

Metropolis 2008 review

It sprawls, encompasses, has love and hate and revenge and socialist commentary about the workers vs the liberal elite, and at two and a half hours, it gives a lot of Marvel films a run for their infinities.

It’s hard not to think of Quantumania, as I recently saw it. With damn near a century between it, it’s hard to realise at this point I understand what my Film teacher meant by why he had not seen Star wars. This was far more animated with life.

Ostensibly Sci-fi, we follow Joh Frederson through his awakening. He is living a life of blissful eloi-like bi-sexuality, running bare-chested through life with his peers and being enchanted by women of pleasure at every corner. He becomes besotted with Maria, a woman who shows what agency is and gives a glimpse of the world below.

Like Dante’s journey into this other land takes work, the social mobility between the worlds is more apparent in this version.11811 replaces Frederson as Joh feels the need to have a brief experience on the coalface to understand the plight of the workers. 11811 realises he gains more than respite and soon settles into a hedonistic life courted by women of the world, to his delight. But from this, he is willing to fight for the idealism John has shown him rather than shout ‘mug’ and join the tory party. John’s closest friend, and one I feel are the closest we get to an explicit homo-erotic relationship, is the assistant cast out by freder to the depths knowing full well the risk it entails. Between the three, we see a need to escape and commit. Despite the hierarchical powers of the thin man and those workers, such as the worker of the heart machine, who knows, as bad as things get, how much worse violence can create.

This brings us to Maria. Maria preaches understanding and commitment to all. To try and elevate rather than be damned to molocks jaws. At the same time, the scientist creates a satanic golem in false maria, complete with a pentacle to summon its replication of life. A scene that one can’t help but be affected by. Infeed, the biblical floods of children and workers are real benign actors and not dismissed as CGI. Time does not lessen the impact or shock.

But Brigitte Helm, with the limitations of silent cinema, commands a sense of the joyful and satanic in each rendition. Her ability to common respect in one guise while cavorting and controlling men to irrationality in another makes you feel these are two distinct forces at work.

With the flood clearing and the children saved 9 I try to be spoiler-free, but come on) and his father’s redemption. The film glosses a specific apologist tone about the dim-witted workers quickly roused to passion. But the scanner and mechanics created an audacious scene of beauty and mesmerism. They should have reintroduced a 20-minute intermission at two and a half hours. But given the length of the avatar, this had way more story and character.

So, in essence alone….my teacher was right. And that was the 87-minute version he talked about!