M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
This film is probably the most famous german film ever and with that, my expectations were horribly high. However, when I started watching it back then, I nearly fell asleep after 10 minutes and decided to go to bed (stupid german TV program, why are good films always in the middle of the night?) So here’s my second try on seeing this.
Well, the first thing I have to say is that I am amazed by it – the cinematography, the suspenseful story, the gorgeous portrait of german society (and german people!)… Every single of these points are worth an essay of its own.
The main achievements (maybe similarily to Citizen Kane) is probably the freshness of the style – the cinematography, especially the sounds (or the lack of it in certain scenes). While watching it, we discussed about whether it is intentional and noticed how well done the sound is actually used; and in fact, it was intentional.
Also, we mentioned several times while watching the film that if it continues to be at such a high level, it will most probably enter our top film lists. Well, when it comes to old classics, this probably is really my favourite (as you can see, even though I enjoy classics, there are only a few old films that are on my best-of-list). But after a suspenseful development, the story ended up in a fulminant final that added a lot to the expression and meaningfulness of the film. At some point, I felt like I was in a play, especially while Lorre’s greatly performed monologue.
Oh, and the last point, well… we had to watch the film with french subtitles (wtf?) and it showed perfectly how many details could not be properly translated due to the fact that some words simply don’t exist in another languages. (Stulle, anyone?) Actually a lot of the wordplays and german expressions were lost due to the translation which only shows the smartness and realism of the dialogues. It makes the film much more enjoyable when you are actually german or are knowledgeable about german culture, I think. A film like this could not have possibly been done by a non-german… but the question whether an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’ can do a better portrait of a society is endless of course. Even though this question is rather important for me, especially in something as popular as films, I don’t have a decisive opinion about it.
Another great point is that this film does not have any soundtracks at all! Even then, I didn’t miss it and the atmosphere of the film was conveyed just right even without a soundtrack. I am amazed.
All in all, this is probably truly the best german film ever made, and proves that there actually is a history and potential for good german films – even though with “Der Untergang” and “Das Leben der Anderen”, there are also modern german films I really like. By the way, I want to see “Das Leben der Anderen” again… arr, that one was so great!
Yay, this certainly is one of my favorite films.
Together with Alfred Hitchcock and Jacques Tati, Fritz Lang is likely to be the most technically assured and visionary of all directors. I agree wholly with you on the awesomeness of the sound design in this film, it enables this sense of terrifying desolation to permeate through all stages of the story; Peter Lorre gives one of the most impressive performances evah, I think.