Tag: m

directed by Fritz Lang

If you’re one of those people who think that old black&white films are boring, I hope I will change your mind with this film. But before I tell you about the plot, I’d like you to look at the title. The English (or even international) title is “M” (for Murderer), yet in German they used a little longer title, which literally means “A City Searches for a Murderer”. At first it was supposed to be called “Mörder unter uns” (Murderer Among Us), but after the director shared the information about making this film in a newspaper and that it’s about a child murderer, people got furious. It was such a big deal that the studio didn’t let Lang shoot the film using their space. But since we can all see this film now, it means that they actually managed to make it. And I believe this production, even though it was made in the 30s, was way ahead in its form. So if you’re interested in the more technical part of making films, I’m sure you’ll find it interesting, especially its camerawork and sound. Anyway, time to tell you what the story is about. The film takes place in Berlin where children are being kidnapped and murdered by some mysterious person. The whole city is terrified and the police do their best, but cannot find a single clue. However, not everybody’s happy with the fact that the police is observing them 24/7, and those who’d like to “get back to normal” are… criminals, who, surprisingly, begin a chase after the murderer in order to help the police. I think that this part of the story is already very much interesting; that two totally different groups of people unite to reach one goal. But the most disturbing is the fact that they unite not only to save children, but to punish the M and get back to their lives. At least this is how I saw it. Selfish? A bit. But let’s face it, that’s incredibly human. Of course it all started with the will to keep children safe, but in the end, everyone wanted to gain something for themselves. And also about the end… *SPOILER ALERT* The end is definitely my favourite part of this film, because it’s like a cherry on top. People who wanted to do good, to catch a criminal and protect others, suddenly become a group of beasts who wish to hurt another human being. I know that it’s a murderer, he killed several children, yet the ending shows how easily it is for us to wake up this “murderer” in ourselves. I’m sorry if I’m being a bit drastic or philosophical, but that’s how I read this story and why I find it so special. *END OF SPOILER* Last thing I want to tell you is that Peter Lorre, who played the murderer, did a marvellous acting job and you should definitely watch this film to see his performance. In fact, the director, Fritz Lang, spent several days talking to real child murderers and even invited some criminals to be extras in the film, which was quiiiiiite controversial, as you can imagine. But we cannot say he didn’t care about realism, right?

My rating: 7/10
S.