Metropolis, the movie - 1926

Metropolis, the movie - 1926

Metropolis is a movie by pre-World War II German filmmaker Fritz Lang. The movie tells a tale of human triumph in the face of a nightmarish mechanized/industrialized culture. In Metropolis, wealthy factory owners rule over a subterranean working class. While the film has interesting class struggle overtones, it is remarkable mainly for its vision of the future, featuring an Art Deco mechanized world rising into the sky over a humming maze of factories with huge grinding machines and depersonalized working conditions. The story also features a robot, shown here, who is sent to replace a union organizer figure in the movie, causing chaos among the workers.

The film is arguably the first science fiction film ever made, and presents an interesting view of the future, one which is still sometimes predicted, even if the aesthetic is modernized.


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