Review of M (1931) by Daren F — 25 Sep 2008

This is Lang's first talkie and wow its a good one (big understatement).

[b]Sorry for the massive spoilers that are coming but this film cannot be talked about without them.[/b].

The story of a child murder and the search efforts put on by the police and the criminal underground. The film surprisingly makes the audience and members of the criminal underground feel for the murder, not forgive but feel almost sorry for the man because he cannot control himself. In one of the great performances of the time, Lorre creates a complex figure with little dialogue or screen time.

The film was at the beginning of sound and there was a massive debate whether this was a good or bad thing and Lang almost fights for the advent and use of sound in this film. With the use of the man who captures the murder is blind, and how with sound he solves the mystery and with that sound can save children and make film assessable to all peoples (but not too much because, as I am about to say, Lang is very visual).

Lang use a theme of circles and lines and being captured by that and the contrast of light and dark and the tone of song with the actions of the scene or the words of that song. Everything comes together as a foreshadow or an example of tension or a creation of fear or development of a character or scene. Everything in the film is essential, missing a second is dangerous to the understanding of the film as a whole. Also, one can see how violence is subtly used but with great effect and how today's torture porn is stupid and inane.

Time for examples, not to important of scene but good ones. The use of sound in the beginning where we hear children singing a song of being taken and killed but it is a jolly tune and then we follow a woman upstairs to the mother of the girl leading the song and here beings one of the greatest build up of tension and fear and fabulous montage and camera work in all of film. Lang uses the sound of a mother screaming for her child, the use of empty spaces to instill a sense of fear/tension, the use of lines on a wall and ball to show innocence and those lines and circles used later to show us what happened without it actually being shown to use. The opening is an orgasm of film making and will stick with me forever.