The Movie
Watched with the proper appreciation, Fritz Lang's Metropolis is at times staggering, a vast production made in the early days of motion pictures, and a science fiction parable way ahead of its time. In this future world, society exists across a vast cultural divide with the ultra-rich playing while the working class toils underground in spirit-crushing conditions. The privileged are in fact secretly developing a sophisticated new robot designed to take the place of people altogether.
And since this android can be made to look identical to any person, a plan is concocted to create a double of the workers' peaceful heroine and sow the seeds of discontent among their rebellious sect. The idea is to start a riot, thereby giving leave to crush the pesky laborers once and for all. Complicating the nasty scheme is the growing involvement of the son of the most powerful man in this false utopia, who may just be the prophesied mediator between the "head" and "hands" of this civilization.
This German film from 1927 is dark in tone yet ultimately upbeat, and has clearly influenced many science fiction movies since. The Complete Metropolis as it is being called on Blu-ray refers to the restoration of 25 minutes, after more than a quarter of the movie was cut/altered shortly after its original theatrical premiere. An almost-complete version was located two years ago on a 16mm print, horribly damaged but tweaked and reconstructed here following extensive research to ensure accuracy, with black screens and summary text for those portions still lost.
The Picture
The black-and-white master enjoys a high bitrate, often in the mid to-high-30-megabit-per-second range. There is grain and noise and film damage evident even in the "classic" footage, and Lang often surrounds his 4:3 frame with an iris for effect, which exhibits ringing here in its soft edge. The blacks however are quite strong, revealing elaborate smudging on the dark worker uniforms and significant detail elsewhere, and some of the clearer shots are simply gorgeous in HD.
The reinstated scenes shift to a smaller window onscreen and are usually marred by a heavy rainstorm of black scratches. There's only so much that digital tools could do to correct the flaws, so these inserts tend to call attention to themselves. Unfortunately there is no seamless branching option to the more commonly-seen version of Metropolis, without all of the jarring shifts.
The Sound
A new recording of Gottfried Huppertz's original 1927 score was created for this extended cut, performed by the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin as conducted by Frank Strobel. It's available in both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and an uncompressed linear PCM 2.0 stereo. The proper score is an essential accompaniment and the 5.1-channel mix is recommended to better simulate what the experience must have been like, watching the movie in a cinema with live music playing. The recording itself is clean but not spectacular in terms of complexity or dynamics, nor was it mixed with a genuinely discrete surround intent. The compositions themselves start out promisingly enough, but frankly grow tiresome after two and a half hours.
The Extras
The bonus materials provide a solid background on the film for newcomers, with lots of modern insight that should come as news to longtime fans as well. "Voyage to Metropolis" is a 55-minute, eight-part documentary that chronicles not only the story behind the production and release but also the Herculean restoration efforts. Additionally, there's a nine-and-a-half-minute interview with Paula Felix-Didier, curator of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the missing Metropolis footage was discovered. Both of these extras are in HD.
Final Thoughts
The unearthing of the long-lost footage is a major moment in film history, giving audiences a glimpse at the great Fritz Lang's true vision for the epic Metropolis. I do have some misgivings about the term "Complete," should the still-missing bits be found some day, by some miracle, in more watchable condition than what is presented here. But as the best-possible preservation of a cinematic treasure, this Blu-ray is a landmark.
Product Details
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