Source: Kino International
Seeking 2 hours and 45 minutes of golden silence on the silver screen? You can’t do any better than Fritz Lang’s historic 1927 film masterpiece Metropolis, now playing on the Laemmle’s Theatre circuit.
Set in the 21st Century, the silent classic envisions a futuristic world in which a seductive female android goads subterranean proletariat workers to rise up against their surface-dwelling capitalist overlords. It’s a seminal work featuring amazingly elaborate sets, art and costumes; a good deal of theological and scientific reflection; lots of over-the-top melodramatic acting common to the Silent Era; and a sumptuous original score by Gottfried Huppertz.
In fact, the New York Times has hailed the particular Kino International release screening at Laemmle’s as the film’s “definitive reconstruction.” It includes 25 minutes of recently rediscovered footage, making it the most accurate approximation of the film’s 1927 Berlin premiere currently in existence.
But be warned: Metropolis is not your typical date-night flick. It’s ponderously long, alternately engrossing and plodding, and at a few points even laughably campy — more a piece for film students, true movie buffs and the historically curious.
The upside? Metropolis is, after all, an epic within Filmdom’s Pantheon, and even the casual viewer will enjoy spotting the origins of numerous movie cliches stolen for rehash in later Hollywood works.
