Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis

1927 [GERMAN]

Action / Documentary

6
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 81% · 7 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 81% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.6/10 10 5104 5.1K

berlin, germany city portrait black and white train avant-garde silent film

Plot summary

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Director

Walter Ruttmann Photo
Walter Ruttmann

Top cast

Paul von Hindenburg Photo
Paul von Hindenburg as Himself
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
538.58 MB
988*720
German 2.0
NR
Subtitles de  
19.98 fps
1 hr 5 min
Seeds 2
1 GB
1472*1072
German 2.0
NR
Subtitles de  
19.98 fps
1 hr 5 min
Seeds 11

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by peapulation 8 / 10

One of the best 'slice of life' documentaries that doesn't age but keeps getting better and better.

An amazing work of the 'slice of life' films of the 20s, really the main and most admirable example along with Dziga vertov's Man With the Movie Camera, to this day, the film remains an effective portrayal of the great city that Berlin was even back when the film was made. In fact, as time goes by, it picks up even greater importance because of the historical value that it holds.What is truly admirable is the editing and the cinematography. Perhaps even more than the things that are contained in the framework, is the framework itself which has the first impact on the viewer. The wonderful photography, and the skilled editing that is able to go from man to machine, from trains to horses, from workmen to roller-coaster rids, are always elegant and original, even in regards to Vertov's later work mentioned above. It is, in fact, stylistically a Ruttmann work. Although the work of Vertov and Ruttmann are similar, there is a difference in the sense that while The man With the Movie Camera is aware of being a film, and plays with the process of film-making, Berlin actually lets the contents of the framework play out, and never quite interferes with it.
Reviewed by st-shot 8 / 10

Incredible historical document of a lost city.

Berlin, Symphony of a City is a remarkable historical document of the mighty city before its Wagnerian capitulation within less than twenty years of its filming. Along with Paris, Berlin was the epicenter of a Europe emerging from World War 1 into the Roaring Twenties and director Walter Ruttman for the most part captures the energy and pace of the 20th century metropolis.Moving from morning to night Symphony emphasizes the cities industrial muscle but also divides evenly portraits of the have and have nots of Berlin, the grime as well as the glitter. It is a city on the move and move it does from the crowded sidewalks to the congested avenues and its varied populace . It is in the faces of these Berliners that the film holds its greatest fascination for me watching children playing and youth sporting events with the knowledge that most of them will be of draft age for the oncoming conflagration that will reduce this city to rubble.The documentary does have problems with some scenes clearly staged (in one case a suicide filmed in close-up) and a roller coaster scene is overlong but overall when put into historical context this is a valuable visual document of a city that is extinct as Atlantis.
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