Before the legendary lost original cut of Fritz Lang’s astounding (and confounding) silent wonder, METROPOLIS, was found hiding in plain sight at a Brazilian film archive (recovered, restored and released in 2010*), Lang’s technically brilliant World-of-Tomorrow Sci-Fi (a chilly cautionary about a thriving society on Earth’s surface living off the forced labor of a slave colony below; visionary in all senses of the word), it had seen so many editions you never knew what you’d find inside. Timings varied by up to an hour, a tinted 16mm print from Australia might have tossed some storylines/added others; a star composer maybe chopped it up with rhythmic editing to fit his music and look ‘more modern.’ So, in 2001, when Japanese director Rintarô's anime version came out, the cherry picked elements from the original, didn’t seem quite as unjustified as they do today. The original’s revolt of the slaves who are being treated like robots? Now, it’s the revolt of mistreated robots! (Echt Japanese, that.) Maria, saint of the poor and her false mechanical double? Now, she’s Tima, a robot who thinks she’s human. ( A bigger problem is her teeny, tiny anime mouth & nose.) The fair-minded son of the world’s overlord? Now he’s an evil, power-mad adopted son. The rest of the story mostly dropped, and since its all spectacular animation, the thrill of the old stop-motion animated future also missed. Yet on its own relentless terms, with forward looking warnings of AI takeovers, the film works, and delivers a ‘cool factor’ that covers a lot of running in place. Listen up to the inventive music track, lots of jazz and a spectacular sound cue at the climax when Ray Charles blasts out ‘I Can ‘t Stop Loving You.’ What Lang & scripter wife Thea von Harbou would have made of this is anyone’s guess.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *The mad, magnificent, full-length METROPOLIS/’27. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/02/metropolis-1927.html
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