The black fairy tale that is Metropolis (1927) absolutely blew me away the first time I saw it. It’s visually arresting in and of itself, but that something from 1927 could possess that optical splendor was a shock. The opening scene of a workers’ shift change and a plunge into their underground city. Freder’s short-lived frolic in the Garden. The craggy labyrinth of the catacombs where the workers meet. Rotwang’s laboratory, complete with bubbling liquids and rings and bolts of life-granting light. It’s a feast of fantasy laid before us and not just for fantasy’s sake. I appreciate the theme and the ideas that underlie the narrative, but what sticks with me after the lights come up is the dance sequence and the surrounding scenes . . . and the dark and blatant sexuality.
The initial image of Rotwang’s machinated woman on screen is pure sci-fi delight. A svelte column of quicksilver, this invention lets us know that we’re dealing not just with a revolution of industry but with one of sex as well. Bathed in probing rings of lightwhich create literal halos around her, it becomes obvious that it isn’t just the men in the club who are to worship this being. We, too, should look to her on a pedestal and pay our respects with awe and reverence. Then machinated woman takes on Maria’s countenance, and C. A. Rotwang delivers us a written invitation to see this erotic dancer, this devious mediator between the minds and the loins of the privileged.
The stage for her performance harkens bondage, with muscled men in loin cloths (real or carved or does it matter?) holding the stage on their shoulders. And the stage they hold is an elaborate, self-luminous creation like an oversized trinket box from a lady’s vanity. The top opens, like a clam proffering its pearl, and from a powdery haze of smoke and light, Maria ascends. With a headdress to rival Egyptian royalty, she is before us, and the magnificent stage melts away lest it compete with Maria’s impending performance. Her arms spread and the backlighting reveals a cape that could be woven from dew drops and air it’s so light and twinkling. A draping of beads from waist to foot, strategic beaded coverings, and flesh fill the screen. She spins like a top until she’s free from the excess draping of the cape. She marches into geometric poses, signaling to us with hands and knees. Then, she gyrates into fluid movement, her arms creating such snakelike semblance across her back that we’re assured that archetypal evil is in the moment.
And even though this is stunning, what really shakes me up are the splices of her male audience. I’ve seen sex scenes in movies and listened to lots of dialogue about sex, but I’ve never been as convinced of the presence of sheer, furious lust as when I look at the faces of those men. The open-mouthed panting. The determined eyes and half-drawn smirk. A ravel of aggression and desire.
In his fever-induced delirium, Freder receives a message, and we get it too--as a screen of dialogue: “For her--all seven deadly sins!” Well, they are for us, too. Death’s bony fingers guide a melody on the human bone he plays, and he and the sinful statues now dance toward us. And when the statues take up their place on Maria’s revised and rising stage at the end of her performance, the men of privilege bombard her plateau to actively partake in the sinful fantasy she offers. But beyond their rush, ending this particular sequence, the lone Death still creeps eerily toward us, his scythe posing above his head and gashing toward us like a mortal mark of punctuation to emphasize his message. And while Death descends upon the city, new life is brought to our minds and cinematic consciousness.
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