Review of M (1931) by Wesley R — 22 Jan 2011

The subject matter of this film isn't something you'd expect to encounter from the 1930s: a serial killer who preys on children. In Germany, though, serial killers were a problem and Lang shows us how both the police and criminal underground went about their manhunt for this "monster". The film has a surprisingly modern feel to it since a lot of the methods the police used in the film are still in use today and parallels could be drawn from the criminal undergrounds use of their social network to the social networks of today being used to help solve crimes. The depiction of the serial killer is also revolutionary for its time in portraying him as someone who is mentally unstable and potentially unable to control his actions. Whether this is true or not is left up to the viewer and doesn't seem to really matter. This is my only true complaint about the film since this is due to the fact that it ends rather abruptly with the moral of the story thrust upon us.

M is the first non-silent film of Lang's career. With this in mind, it is very impressive how Lang utilized this new dimension of film. The serial killer whistles "In the Hall of the Mountain King" whenever he's in the mood to kill and can be heard even when he is not on-screen. This is one of film's first uses of a leitmotif, which has become a staple in films since. The absence of sound is also used prominently to focus solely on images to evoke feelings of loss, power, or the sheer magnitude of an event. Lang proved that he can easily harness sound as well as visuals.