City of the future

Under the sunset of expressionism, the German current in the cinema of the early XX century, in 1927, Fritz Lang demonstrates his phantasmagoria, a vision of the future with emotional, deeply expressed features. The anti-dystopia film "Metropolis" gave impetus to the world cinema and forever changed its appearance, thus, the avant-garde once again confirmed the versatility of art on film and the unbridled breadth of thoughts, ideas and innovation.

Lang's picture is not just a utopia, but an anti-utopia with widely expressed oppressive features of totalitarianism. Negative characteristics of the absorption of the public by a powerful mechanism, insensitivity and remoteness from the desired idyll, which is dissolving in the minds of ordinary people with each passing hour more and more - all this leads to a loss of a realistic view of the peaceful, even slightly surreal in its equality existence.

Fantastic images that give a shade of totalitarianism are just a background, a surrealistic illusion, but the routine does not disappear anywhere, it will always take its place in this story. Reality seems simple to the grinding disgust from beneath the faded, unaided gaze. But either the hands rotate the eternal mechanism, the motor that divides everyone into classes and social classes, or whether these hands give orders with simple movements, and a greedy look tirelessly monitors the perpetual work.

Metropolis lives, it breathes, boils. It is a city of the future, divided into two parts. One part of this life lives and works underground, the other - rules and does not consider hours of rest and entertainment. Like fire and water, they are distant from each other. Some, dissolving in the idyll of bliss, do not notice the physical weariness of others, and there is no equality in matters of everyday life and peaceful existence. But with a rapid chaotic movement, one particle can fly beyond the edge of one and involuntarily fall outside the boundaries of an entirely different life. Catastrophe, the intersection of two minds, the clash of a historically developed mentality, a revolution in the mind of the individual - all this leads to an emotional explosion ...

Built, honed to an abominable splendor, a fantastic view of the city, convincingly and ominously frightening. It's like night New York, lit all its lights on the day of the festival, and the breadth of imagination prompts to build up huge buildings far to heaven as high as possible. Under the ground people, if they are part of the mechanism, routinely and monotonously, in time to the whole movement, carry out their work. They and the mechanisms are like a whole.

And among the monotony there is a place for civil strife, the tactical moves will awake in the mind, and even a robot created by a person can become the master of an innumerable number of workers. Throwing the bait with a tempting dance - and people turn into animals, real savages, driven by instincts with a clouded mind. A machine can control a person? Yes, if this machine is also controlled by a person. So we get an infinite chain, which, if it breaks, it will not lose a single component link. After all, this is a city in which life is seething, and let it look as if in a dream, in fact, it is the construction of any other city or society in it. But is this enough?

Perhaps not, so the director feeds the audience with their avant-garde, even slightly awkward frames, in which reflects a veiled, albeit not so obviously slippage context. Bounces to the Bible, numerous coincidences with history and a weak line between reality and unreality burden Metropolis with explicit appeals to address the primary sources. Remember, re-read, and maybe not repeat old mistakes, learn from the past and look only to the future. And do we want to live in such future, under the signboard "Metropolis"?

The director skillfully was able to collect all the details, all the messages of the public. Even with the help of a silent movie he managed to convey the cry of the soul, pain and despair. True, the pleasure is ghostly, but painfully close to the reality of the world, Lang was not cheap - and the picture was the most expensive in the era of silent movies. And now, after many years, the innovation of Metropolis is visible to the unaided eye, and the fantastic vision, begun with this picture, still can not reach its end point.

True, with his slightly pathetic ending, the director gives a direct answer to the question posed, and the oppressive state, accrued by every new frame of this picture, immediately dissipates, and there comes a pacification, picked up by a light breeze. Was it thus necessary to bring the thought to its climax? Maybe, but in any case, Metropolis will forever remain a cinematic masterpiece, a creation that gave art a new impetus in its further development.