Metropolis

A few years ago, I went down to London with a bunch of re-enactors and, while we were there, we were taken to a pub called the Dev (don't ask me where it is - we just popped up from a tube station. It could have been anywhere!) At that time, it was The Goth Pub in London, and many and various were the costumes and makeup on show. Somewhere towards the back of the bar was a film screen, and the film they were showing that night was Metropolis. I only caught snippets of it, but it was enough for me to know that I didn't want to miss the newly re-mastered version being shown at the Parish Hall as part of the Borderlines Film Festival.
It was a small, but appreciative, audience for a film which is hardly mainstream - a black and white, silent film made in Germany in 1927. But Fritz Lang's dystopian view of the future still has resonance today - the break-down of the Herz-Machine when the workers revolted reminded me rather too closely of the Japanese nuclear reactors that are in the news at the moment.
Brigitte Helm was wonderful in her dual role - she was both the saintly Maria and Evil Robot Maria. Amongst Star Wars fans, robot Maria was usually known as 'C3PO's mother', because that was pretty much what she looked like, but for most of the time the mad scientist gave her Maria's human form and the actress showed the difference between them in her body language. Hard to believe that she was only sixteen when she started work on the film, and that it was her first starring role. (I'm afraid I thought the hero was a bit wet).
The skimpy costumes for the dancing scene and the scene in the garden were a reminder that this was before the Hays Code made Hollywood respectable! One girl appeared to be wearing nothing but a bit of net curtain on her upper half!
It's a fun movie, and it can still make you think, which is not bad for something that was made in 1927!