In the futuristic city Metropolis, the idle rich enjoy a carefree life, while the poor have to work themselves to death on giant machines. When Freder Fredersen, son of the city’s richest and most powerful citizen, learns of the worker’s harrowing conditions through the preacher Maria, he decides to join her underground resistance. However, his father regards the rebels as a threat. Together with the mad scientist Dr Rotwang, he plans to replace Maria with a robot double and thus undermine her movement from within.
With its spectacular sets and ground-breaking special effects, the epic Metropolis overshadowed all of its competitors upon release. Together with his wife and scriptwriter Thea von Harbou, the notoriously perfectionist director Fritz Lang created a breath-taking vision of the future, whose ruminations on the themes robotics, technological utopia, and class warfare lastingly shaped the sci-fi-genre. We show the newly restored version from 2010 with a live soundtrack by the duo Bit-Tuner and IOKOI. Their blend of electronic music and sublime vocals imbues the futuristic images with a one-of-a-kind intensity.
Mischa Haberthür
