Metropolis is a science fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang in 1927, it is set in a futuristic city where working class and upper-class has a very clear divide. The wealthy and privileged Jon Fredersen lives above in a clean and glamorous environment whereas we see the facility workers underground being overworked and treated in an un-mannerable way. The son to Fredersen, Freda, who admires a women named Maria follows her down to the underground and stumbles upon the working environment. Freda is astonished by the pain and struggles he sees and therefore offers to swap lives with one of the workers at the clocks. During his attempt to blend in he attends a meeting lead by Maria, who announces him to be ‘the heart’ which is the in-between of the head, being his father and body, being the workers. Following this, the Despicable scientist Rotwang kidnaps Maria and clones an evil version of her who represents the seven deadly sins. This clone is sent down to the workers to hypnotize them into destroying themselves and the city. This chaos causes the workers to shut down and destroy all the machines which lead to flooding and danger resulting in Freda having stop them.
I thought the initial scenes captured the idea of classism in a very emotional but cinematic way which sparked my interested in the plot and how Lang attacks themes of supremacy and exploitation. I found the film to be entertaining and have a very unique plot as it was definitely a storyline which I had never seen done before. I felt that the fact it was a silent movie was interesting as the soundtrack helped to ignite emotion and reaction to the events happening, however it made it harder to understand the plot completely and for that reason I had to really concentrate and be patient throughout the movie.
There were very clear costume semiotics throughout the film, where we see Freda in an all white outfit whereas the workers all wore dark clothing showing the divide between these people and also could have symbolised a sense of slavery that they were being put through. At the beginning of the film we see Fredas life in the upper-class, privileged environment where the people around him all wore extravagant, colourful garments with large sleeves and distinct silhouettes. The workers clothing were dark with earthy tones which could symbolise how Jon Fredersen and the upper class viewed them as dirty and unworthy people who were just born into the world to work and undeserved of basic human rights. They lacked interesting structure as it was just boiler suits showing they don’t care for individual expression and reinforces their view that these people had any type of purpose on earth other then working for him.
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