From grateful descendants ...

The mediator between the head and the hands should be the heart "- so begins the film.

Oppressed and oppressors. The magnificent and majestic city of the future, in which the elite of the society lives, ignorant cares, except for games and entertainment, exists only thanks to the relentless and exhausting work of the inhabitants of the lower quarters. It's not even work, but self-sacrifice, so that the upper city can live, the poor from the bottom, literally, must be absorbed in the machine, whose name is Moloch. Presumably - this is one of the names of the deity, who in ancient times was supposed to make human sacrifices. And now imagine - a black and white silent German film of 1927 - soon the Nazis will come to power in Germany and bring many victims do not understand what Moloch. The oppressive and gloomy atmosphere of waiting.

Is it mysticism? Or a great sense of time, thanks to which authors can look to the future? After all, even then, the Germans had a feeling of hatred and resentment for the humiliation of the First World War. Serpent egg from which hatred hatred.

In fact, everything can be much more prosaic, in the first half of the 20th century, the problem of social injustice was paramount. The question of unfair oppression of the working class at that time was raised by many - in Chaplin's films in the form of satire, in Fromm's books in the form of a neo-Freudian critique of capitalism. People built cars and were enslaved by the work of their own hands, became part of them. A person is alienated from the results of his own work. Escape from freedom and man for himself, the so-called books of Erich Fromm, and such thoughts were in the hands of people's thoughts at the time. As it must, often happens in history, as Tolstoy wrote about it, one target and one direction of movement captures, simultaneously, a large number of people. This trend of time appears in all forms of creativity as a leitmotif. The metropolis of Fritz Lang, shot on the novel by Thee von Harbou, goes the same way. Creators seem to turn to employers - be kind to their workers, be more humane, get to them - do not look at them as robots that are programmed to increase your well-being. The film is majestic, deliberately negligent to a small man - there are flashed robots, cars, huge distances, tall buildings, huge colossi. It was this disregard for the person, who was also a way to show the unsightly reality, and to impress the viewer, even to frighten, made such an indelible impression on Hitler. He called him one of his favorite films, because for him it was the embodiment of the great German genius - order, unquestioning obedience, strict hierarchy, scale of intent and lack of spirituality. Well, Moloch, of course. In this eerie god, Hitler probably saw himself and the very nature of things. A real work of art is like a mirror, everyone in it can contemplate himself.

Yes, this is a great German film. Which not only became a powerful response to the tide of time, but also loudly and threateningly, like a statue, embodied all the advantages and disadvantages of the German people and, in many respects, of all people.

Metropolis is an anxious prediction filled with Kafka's neurosis and fear, an inferiority complex that responds to great intentions and great scales. A look in yourself and in the future close up. A milestone for world cinema and a notch on the tree of mankind.

The mediator between the head and the hands should be the heart "- so the film ends.

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