Metropolis (DVD)

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is probably the oldest movie I’ve ever seen (it was made in 1927). Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not going to use its age either for or against it. It’s just that they don’t make ‘em like this any more, and for good reason. It tells of a future city - Metropolis - which is split in two, Time Machine style, into the wealthy, intelligent people living above ground, and the workers living deep underground. One day, a man from above gets a visit from a mysterious woman, who inspires him to delve underground and see how his brothers live. On encountering their daily toil, labouring to keep vast machines running for the good ...

Hardly anyone watches silent films anymore, which is a shame. Probably it’s the obvious old-fashioned-ness that puts people off. Silent cinema appeals to me at least partly because it’s so different to modern cinema, but I also love the sense of scale that you get in some of the films (it seems that building enormous sets that probably cost more than Belgium was not unusual), and also the way you can see film as a narrative medium developing. If silent films are frequently clumsy and unsubtle, later films refined their methods and became what we have today. Besides, I rather like clumsy and unsubtle. And Metropolis, made in 1927, is certainly clumsy and ...

Japanese Anime is a quite recent phenomenon in Finland that has been practically non-existent before the turn of the millenium. So far the biggest market for manga and anime outside of Japan has really only been the United States, although even there it has really been the pleasure of only a select few. Thankfully things have of late been improving considerably as the artform really is so much more rich than simply Pokemón and Dragonball Z. In my country there has been a steadily growing fascination in anime over tha last couple of years that is getting stronger by the year. There has already been a number of important releases on DVD of the likes of Akira, Ghost in the ...