Metropolis, Part 3

He also avoids the pitfalls of politics. Although Metropolis addresses the inequality between labor and "management," it is not a diatribe of Socialist rhetoric. There is balance here, for those who are at first the victims become in time the victimizers. The lesson is that neither head nor hand alone is capable of creating a balanced society.

The usual interpretation of the theme of this film is that love is the true balancing force. However, it is not love that drives Freder to seek reparation for the overburdened workers. Love is the instigator here, not the impetus. Rather, it is responsibility, and his acceptance of his own personal place in the order of things, that moves him to stop the antagonism between those who enjoy the city's benefits and those who provide them without recompense.

When we see Freder for the first time, he is romping in a "pleasure garden." It is apparent that, despite being an adult, he has nothing better to do. Even when his conscience is belated born, he runs to his father to resolve the problem rather than attempting to do it himself. The movie tracks him as he learns the true source of all the good things he has always taken for granted and then accepts that he himself must act to initiate change.

Metropolis is an extraordinary film and well deserving no only of the title "classic" but of "masterpiece" as well. It is also, sadly, timeless. The societal imbalance that Lang chronicles has yet to be resolved and has, in fact, grown worse in our high-tech world. Service workers--the janitors and the nurse's aides and the daycare workers and the cab drivers--still work long and hard for wages that are far below those of the people who benefit from their services, and they are still "invisible." We can only hope that a more enlightened world will come to its collective senses and rectify the situation before some charismatic demagogue arises to incite our own "people below" to violence.

1. Konigsberg, Ira; Complete Film Dictionary, The; Meridian, 1989

2. Law, Jonathan, ed., et al.; Cassell Companion to Cinema, The; Cassell Wellington House, London; 1997

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