Movie Review - Fritz Lang's M

1930's era Berlin is in a state of panic due to a child murderer being on the loose. Everyone suspects one another and the instant a man is seen with a child, all chaos breaks loose. Due to the raids on the seedier areas of the city, the criminal element of the city is also after the killer.

When I heard about this movie back when I was in college, what initially attracted me to it was my love of foreign films and my high respect for the Criterion Collection brand. I did not get it at the time due to the fact of being a college student, I was constantly broke and criterion dvds sold at a premium. Fast forward to present,I am now a working person with a full time job and a Netflix subscription so I decided to check it out.

At first I was expecting a dry film that would be interesting mostly as a cultural period piece and not much more. However, I did not let this perspective cloud my judgement while viewing the film because films such as this require viewing with a completely open mind.

One word comes to mind, and that is "WOW", Fritz Lang definitely proved himself to be to be a visionary and Peter Lorre (who played Hans Beckert, the child murderer) was shown to be more than just the "creepy faced actor" that he is often portrayed as. The defining scene for me, the speech he makes when facing the whole of the criminals that want him dead. He really makes you feel that he is suffering with his decrepit mindset. I must also heap praise to Gustaf Gründgens who played Schränker (or Safecracker), who lead the criminals against him and was on the other end of the debate which prompted Lorre's speech that was mentioned earlier. All in all, a really great movie that any serious film buff should watch at least once.

Thinking further about the movie afterwards, the movie is in many ways as relevant today as it was back in the 1930's. The debate still rages to this day about how accountable someone who is mentally unstable is for his or her actions and the concept of "rights" or more accurately the murderer's right to live vs. the victim's rightsto live which, in the movie, were forcibly taken away by the murderer.

Also, this film reinforces my belief that in many films, less is more, meaning you do not necessarily have to show all the gory details to get a point or atmosphere across. None or the murders were ever shown on screen but that did not take away any of the suspense or the fact that it happened.

Another thing that I found interesting was the fact I learned afterwards that the character of Hans Beckert was used in nazi propaganda films to illustrate the evils of sexual deviance. I think this does a great disservice to the character as I believe there was more to him than just the deviance as this movie gave him some semblance of humanity despite his monstrous crimes. The fact that he actively fought against the urges illustrates this and the fact that he blacks out when doing the crime and does not remember it (most likely because he cannot fathom it when he is not in the mode).

Aside from the obvious mission the nazi filmakers were trying to accomplish with trying to purge all deviant thought from their ideal society, this also makes Beckert a one dimensional character rather than Lang's fleshed out flawed human. Feel free to discuss or debate this review, I welcome intellectual discussion/debate as long as it does not degrade into flaming.