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configsys

Star
Oct 18, 2020
18,713
21,122
99 years later and audiences are still wooting and clapping like they never saw it coming.

But seriously, cool movie but really muddled themes I didn't really get. I guess it's warning of populism? But the class warfare is not settled in any meaningful way. Also the guy on the organ, holy fuck 2.5 hours of playing without a break, amazing.
 

Hardy_C_Huckle

Almost Not a Noob
Apr 6, 2026
3,137
3,918
i saw it at the AFI theater in Silver Spring Maryland in late 2019, with a 4-person experimental orchestra (Alloy Orchestra) and it was great.

The movie's themes are incredibly muddled by modern standards. It's not really a left or a right wing film (re: locating it in terms of the proper political relation between workers and owners) even as its a film "about" that conflict. It's more of a fable than a polemic or a coherent social problem film.
 

configsys

Star
Oct 18, 2020
18,713
21,122
i saw it at the AFI theater in Silver Spring Maryland in late 2019, with a 4-person experimental orchestra (Alloy Orchestra) and it was great.

The movie's themes are incredibly muddled by modern standards. It's not really a left or a right wing film (re: locating it in terms of the proper political relation between workers and owners) even as its a film "about" that conflict. It's more of a fable than a polemic or a coherent social problem film.
Yeah, the Babylon stuff came through but it's a weird way to present that. I don't have any context for 1920s German cinema so I figured I'm just missing something about the art of the time, but clearly the class piece must have been important to them or they wouldn't have included it as a heavy theme, they just didn't do anything with it.
 

Crabsoccer

Super Star
Mar 15, 2003
80,248
67,729
If anything it's very visually impressive. It is a bit muddled as you say as far as is it pro worker or pro industrialist or pro technology or anti-technology. Guess Fritz was doing the both sides thing.