Why you should watch “Metropolis”

x-posted from Video Word Made Flesh

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Metropolis. It was absolutely essential to the creation of science fiction as a whole. Not only this, but it comes from a deeply stylized artistic genre that only works in silent film, an art lost to film history. Metropolis is considered German Expressionist, a full fledged artistic as well as filmic movement, with heavy symbolism and art-deco set design. The film is carried by the main female character, Maria, played by Brigitte Helm. Maria and her double are the catalysts for the entire film.

Best Viewed in 2011

Over at Video Word Made Flesh, we did a recent post about contributors’ favorite movies of the year. The idea is that we watch movies from all eras, so choosing one released in 2011 is assuming that movies in 2011 were good. (Although, maybe some of them were.) For that post, I ultimately chose Rosemary’s Baby, but there are so many other good movies that I’ve seen this year! So, in no particular order, here are the best movies I saw in 2011.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary discovers marks from inception.

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly it was about Rosemary’s Baby that stuck with me so much. This is the first (and at this point, the only) film I’ve seen by Roman Polanski and I went into the film thinking it would be another classic horror tale. Now, having seen it, I wouldn’t even really describe it as “horror.” It’s frightening because there’s very little, if anything, in the film you can trust as a viewer.

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