Much of what follow describes what happens in the film in order but I hope the way I've written it provides some insight into what I found in the film. Also don't read this if you don't enjoy long rambling analytical text. I've tried to be as concise as I can.
Metropolis is about the city of the psyche. It's a great film so dense with ideas it'll be hard to fit everything into a mere review, but I'll say as much as I can. It's about the psyche of the mind and of society and the disintegration, separation, and rebirth of this city, which is divided into three levels, an intricate, perfect utopia on the surface and an industrial machine city below. The surface level is one of luxury, freedom, games, culture, recreation and fancy. It is here that Joh Frederson's son Freder lives a carefree life. In the middle of a fling with a woman a set of doors open and he is confronted by a woman, Maria, surrounded by poor, ragged children, who tells him "Freder, these are your brothers and sisters." Struck by this and bewitched, Freder decides to go searching for her, and this is what happens when he does.
He finds himself in the machine city below, in which there is no luxury and no freedom and workers are trapped in bondage machines which they work with tirelessly and without rest. Freder is shocked by what he witnesses, and there is an explosion, as these workers are tied together and marched into the mouth of of some entity named "MOLOCH." He confronts his father about the explosion, and his father asks why he heard this news from his son and not his employee, Josaphat. Josaphat has no answer. Then Grot, the boss of the workers below, who is in charge of the heart M-machine of Metropolis, shows Joh a pair of plans of the machines he found on two workers below. This represents awareness, the workers become aware of the machines they are in bondage to, and subsequently these plans are brought up to Joh by Grot, and he is made aware of this, as is his son. Joh, perturbed by the news, again asks why he was informed by Grot, and not by his employee Josaphat. Josaphat seems to represent a kind of spare part, or proxy figure to Joh, whom relays information to Joh, and his failure to relay information and the question as to why is part of the chaos, seeming malfunction and separation of the psyche and the city of Metropolis that follows.
From this point everything becomes thrown apart in chaos. Josaphat is fired, and becomes spare and without purpose (which should be impossible in a perfectly running utopia). Beginning his role as a mediator and taking responsibility for the first time, Freder, who cannot make sense of Josaphat the information relay being fired, employs him and tells him to wait at his apartment. Freder goes deeper into the machine city, first relieving a worker of his responsibility in bondage to a clock-like machine and taking his place while further chaos ensues as the worker finds himself giving into temptation and decadence, and then below into the depths of the caverns and finds the girl he was looking for, Maria, who is worshipped by the workers as a saint. What follows is the story of the city of Babel, a sort of mini-film within the film which describes the film perfectly, and yet is also a story told within the depths of the psyche to warn of disaster, still just another mechanism to keep it all running. Workers are employed to build the tower of Babel, a perfect city, and they do so, and it stands, but as the intertitle describes perfectly -
- But the minds that had conceived the Tower of Babel could not build it. The task was too great. So they hired hands for wages. But the hands that built the Tower of Babel knew nothing of the dream of the brain that had conceived it. BABEL. BABEL. BABEL. BABEL. One man's hymns of praise became other men's curses. People spoke the same language, but could not understand each other...
This is an illusory self telling story that describes the folly of mind control, and subsequently the structure that only collapses from this foundation. The psyche ends up at war with itself through fatal misunderstanding and it collapses in the face of the creator and. It is an illusion but also just as real as the rest of the machinery of Metropolis, an idea that does not make sense and is self-defeating but when discovered and read keeps the psyche in check.
Next comes the inventor, Rotwang, who lives in an old, out-of-place house that seems to belong in another age. Joh Fredereson sees Rotwang for advice, and laments the death of his wife, who died giving birth to Freder. Although the film seems to follow a linear narrative (impossible to do it any other way, even altering the order of events appears linear in a way), it happens out of time, and therefore the loss of Joh's wife, or the female element of his psyche, or his freedom represented as a female, has happened and has yet to happen as everything in the film is. A statue has been made of her and kept in the inventor's house. Frederson, having learned of the woman in the depths who is worshipped as a saint and who he sees as a disruptive influence, seeks to shift the balance of power by tarnishing her image and depicting her as the opposite, he seeks to devilise her, and the inventor then reveals to him a cybernetic being he has created, who sits under an inverted pentagram, the naked representation of evil mind control, a being seemingly created by the will of an individual mind alone, but a necessary evil in this story, a scapegoat and last ditch attempt to seize control which will go fatally wrong and prove itself false and powerless despite it's seductive allure. The "real" Maria is cornered and trapped in the caverns by the inventor, who captures her. This is when the female and male is separated. She is captured and taken away, and one door opens for the inventor and the last closes for Freder and they are rendered helpless. She finds herself at his mercy, and displays fear and revulsion as the inventor says he wants to take her face and put it on the robot. The loss of individuality and persona to a machine is horrifying.
In the mix is a seemingly disruptive influence in the form of "the thin man," another attempt at control and subterfuge by Joh Frederson. The false Maria begins rallying the workers in a revolt against the machines, while distracting the priveliged bourgeoisie with her charms and with a very revealing outfit that is like a large circle with multiple spokes protruding from it. Sexually charged and blinded by the possibilities on offer, they go mad for her. The imagery here is perfect, the wild and raving men lusting for her transform into a set of multiple eyes, disjointed and staring.
In the finale, she leads the revolt against the machines, and the machine city is flooded, and Freder and Josaphat escape and save the children from drowning, while Grot saves the M-machine just in time. This is another way in which Joh Frederson's grab at power turns on him fatally. Having seen the destruction they were led to by the false Maria, they flock to her with pitchforks to burn the witch as she finally serves her purpose as scapegoat and her cackling, maniacal persona is revealed as an illusion as the fire strips her to her cybernetic circuitry. Horrified at the revelation, they try to attack Joh Frederson, but are held at bay. The inventor tries to take the real Maria as his own, having been so proud of his created Maria. He takes her to the roof of a building and onto a precarious ledge ornamented with devilish gargoyles. Freder gives chase and attempts to stop the inventor, as Joh Frederson is finally forced to kneel amidst the total chaos, after all of his plans crumbled around him, his hands clasping his scalp, his expression one of fear and horror. Finally the trickster inventor falls and Freder and Maria, male and female, are reunited and embrace once more.
At last peace as always is restored and the psyche is reborn whole and without the demonic power lust that seemed to possess it in the form of the trickster inventor and his satanic creation. The psyche is made whole by it's own power, and not that of Joh Frederson or the egoic inventor. As Grot, the man of the heart, and Joh Frederson, the man of the mind, are re-united by Freder, it reads "the heart must be the mediator between the mind and the hands," rather than Maria's false, but necessary teaching "the hands must be the mediator between the heart and the mind" which led to the telling of this tale in the first place.
Not really a "review" as such but I've tried to describe the events and tie them to what I believe are the ideas of this film logically, and I feel this film follows an ingenious, impeccable logic, although the film of course has to be seen, experienced and above all enjoyed, and it is one of the most entertaining films ever made, and a great story no matter what way you read it. The photography and set design is beautiful, futuristic and industrial, this film pulls you in and never lets go. The music too, by Gottfried Huppertz, is awesome and goes with it perfectly. One of my favourite films.
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