Metropolis (Reconstructed and Restored )

Cited as an influence by Madonna, Beyonce, Ridley Scott and George Lucas, Fritz Lang's iconic movie Metropolis can finally be seen as the director intended. The full version of the dystopian classic has been painstakingly pieced back together, 83 years after its premiere.

Sitting down to watch the director’s cut of Metropolis is not to be done lightly; indeed viewing two and a half hours of silent German cinema from the 1920s is hardly a passive experience in any context, but the rewards are massive for the patient movie fan.

Director Fritz Lang’s vision of a starkly divided industrial city, powered by the oppressed workers and enjoyed by the decadent rulers, precedes both George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – this truly is the original dystopian image. Its impact on the sci-fi greats that have come since are clear to see, with both George Lucas and Ridley Scott citing this as an influence, but Metropolis is considerably less accessible than all of the above for a modern British audience.

This is partly due to the paucity of inter-titles, meaning that much of the dialogue is conveyed only by implication, facial expressions and body language. However, it is the striking images that truly reward the audience, as Lang creates several truly spectacular landscapes of the bustling city, replete with daunting skyscrapers and ant-like citizens.

Even more impressive are the scenes involving visual effects: the transformation of Maria into a robot and the explosive destruction of the Heart Machine (the city’s engine) are both remarkable achievements in an age long before CGI.

The political undercurrents are also particularly striking, given the context in which this film was made. The themes of proletarian exploitation and the images of a violent uprising accompanied by strains of the French national anthem mark this out as a clearly socialist piece of cinema, making it all the more ironic that Joseph Goebbels praised Metropolis on its original cinematic release.

Other sections are far more dated, however, and this is not helped by the archive footage which has been restored after decades gathering dust in an Argentinean library. The reconstructed scenes are instantly recognisable as severely damaged and add little to the overall meaning or structure. Years of neglect on the cutting room floor have resulted in various snatches of footage which are so grainy that it seems as though a raincloud has drifted onto the set and will be of interest to only the most hardcore of Lang enthusiasts.

Metropolis is in selected cinemas from September 10th and the DVD is released in the autumn. This complete version is a must-have for any serious classic movie enthusiast.