Friday, 8 March 2013

Darkness in our midst


M (1931)

Directed and co-written by Fritz Lang this German film stars Peter Lorre. The people of a town in Germany hunt the child murderer in their midst.

As with many of his films Lang makes excellent use of expressionism here but this is his first sound film and it did seem like there are portions of the film that lack some sound. The plot does a really good job of handling the subject in a mature manner and asks all the relevant questions as to what society should do with such a killer. Given when the film was made and some of the subject matter it is hard not to view the film with half an eye on how the Nazi party would come to rule Germany but I think this might be a little more hindsight than intention.

5/5

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