Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", released in 1927, is a film that has gone down in history. Although 90 years have passed, many of the settings in the film are still fresh and fashionable for the present. Science fiction, war, and religious themes still cannot get around these restrictions, and they are almost conscious. It can be said that "Metropolis" has set a standing benchmark for them.
To sum up, there are some places where the film is ahead of its time: the appearance of the future city, the threat of robots to human beings, the permanent opposition between oppression and resistance, and the extremeization of beliefs.
The city briefly appeared in the film, the most conspicuous of course were the high-rise buildings, crowded, showing a sense of oppression and rigidity. Cars shuttled through the city like ants, roads were repaired to mid-air, light rails went back and forth, and planes passed through them. Such a scene is basically in line with the level of today's developed cities, but the plane will not dangle in high-rise buildings, which is not very safe.
The appearance of the city is one, and the second is the division of hierarchies. The rich and the powerful live above, with lobbies, libraries, theaters, and sports fields. Ordinary workers can only live underground. This distinction is still present today. Not much has changed, although there is no absolute vertical distance, such as the movie "Skyscraper", at least the distinction is still relatively clear, the upper, middle and lower floors have their own place, of course, their living conditions are also very different.
Speaking of robots, this film is the first film in film history to involve such a thing. Robots must have been a novelty in the 1920s and 1930s, because the world's first industrial robot did not appear until 30 years later. Before this film appeared, weird inventors like King Lord, most of the things he built were vampires like Frankenstein or Nosferatu, so the pioneering nature of this film is self-evident, but It doesn't just stop at the surface of robots, it explores the dangers of robots, in line with the central idea of many later sci-fi movies involving robots.
To put it simply, humans have not yet conquered AlphaGo in Go, which shows that robots are powerful. The representative movies and TV shows are "I, Robot", "Artificial Intelligence", "Ghost in the Shell", etc. It involves robots becoming intelligent and self-conscious, so as to crowd out, attack and even replace human beings. I don't know if I am a clone, or if the clone is my ultimate proposition, "Who am I?", so cloning is stopped, if the robot does not treat itself as a robot, or if the orangutan in "Planet of the Apes" does not Treat yourself as an animal, then the superiority of human beings will be gone, and it will not be far from the time when humans step down from the altar and become the enslaved party.
The robots in "Metropolis" have the taste of clones, because she changed Maria's face, so the workers couldn't distinguish between humans and robots, and followed the robot to make a revolution. Fortunately, this robot has no thoughts, her In his consciousness, he only had the evil bestowed by King Rhodes. He danced in the room, confuses the upper class, degenerates their minds, incited them underground, led the workers to capture the machine area, and smashed and smashed the machine frantically to stop the machine. The direct consequence of this is that people's emotions are out of control, and the city is thrown into chaos, as if the end of the world.
In fact, for the workers, they have been living in the last days. At the beginning of the film, several shots of the machine running are cut together, and then the subtitle card "shifts", the people entering and leaving are like zombies, walking in uniform, step by step, head buried, expressionless, which is in stark contrast to this. In contrast, in the sports field on the ground, the people there are full of energy and vigor, they are running and shouting, and in the sons club, Phyllida, the son of Phyllidasson, is amusing with the woman. In order to further widen this inequality, the protagonist Phyllida experienced the hardships of the workers’ work. Phyllida first saw the explosion caused by the overwork of the workers causing the pressure of the machine to exceed the standard. Falling, wounded, and frightened, Phyllida seemed to see Vulcan in the steam, devouring the lives of the poor workers. Phyllida’s questioning of his father failed, and when he returned to the machine area again, a worker was physically exhausted. Phyllida decisively replaced him. In just ten hours, Phyllida felt exhausted and even had no love for life. , is simply inhumane treatment.
Workers build cities, but the people in the cities enjoy the benefits. This world of difference also forms the so-called oppression. Where there is oppression, there must be resistance. Just like gasoline always ignites, the key is whether there is a flame. Maria played the role of the flame in the film. The workers walked into the cave with a mysterious structural diagram to listen to her speech. She stood on the steps filled with crosses, with candles representing light behind her. , she is Jesus, an angel, and the long-awaited hope of the workers.
For the workers, Mary is a religion. Faith is often linked to religion, and some people regard it as the meaning of life, thinking that if one loses faith, one loses life. If someone violates his faith, he must defend it with his life, because faith cannot be tainted in the slightest. It's easy to fall into extremes. It would be a good thing to follow the beliefs of Maria in the film, because Maria advocates peace and opposes killing. She just wants to balance the contradiction between her head and her skillful hands. Generally speaking, she speaks for the workers. Although it is unavoidable to be suspected of mediating for the oppressor, being able to stand up and shout twice has awakened the sleeping consciousness of the workers to some extent, and touched the conscience of the oppressor to some extent. The overall pattern cannot be changed in a day or two, it is a long process, just like the slogan of communism, which has been shouted for many years, but it is not oppressing the streets, so the resistance is only based on moderate adjustment, and the two sides reach an unanimous compromise. For example, the working environment of workers has been improved, their work and rest schedules are moderate, and their health must be guaranteed. If you just emphasize resistance, just like the robot in the film, it will take over the factory, and doing so may damage the vested interests headed by Zun Feilidachen, but how can the workers live? The water is coming out of the ground. , the children are running around, and no one wants to see such an ending. This is called perishing together. If the adults perished together, that's all. The children are innocent.
Therefore, belief cannot go to extremes. The framework of these thoughts may be dead, but people must be alive. Just like some monks said, wine and meat pass through the intestines, and the Buddha's heart remains in the heart. It is also like Scorsese's "Silence" Like Father Rodriguez in the middle, although he stepped on the statue of Jesus on the surface, he never gave up teaching until his death. The most tragic example of the consequences of extreme beliefs is the killing. Before, there was Hitler's fascism, the Japanese emperor's militarism, and then the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS, which were spawned by Islam, and these terrorist organizations started wars in the world. , created a panic, so that the people's livelihoods were difficult, and the cloud was shrouded.
In the face of belief, one must not be overly emotional, and must maintain a sense of reason. Using violence to overcome violence may solve the present, but it cannot solve the future.
"Metropolis" ends peacefully, seemingly in vain, but from a realistic perspective, it gives the dystopian theme a compromise start. Even if the same themes in later generations are flooded, the resistance will be more intense than the other, but unfortunately, it is finally found that no matter how fierce it is, it is irrelevant. There will always be new oppression born, and several representative series, such as "The Hunger Games", "Divergent". ” and “Maze Runner”, both are the same. There is a mountain outside the mountain, and there is a wall outside the wall. The oppressor is never absent, and the resister is always resisting.
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