Unrated, 1 hr. 45 min. Directed By:
Fritz Lang. Release Date:
Aug 31, 1931. DVD Release
Date: Oct 20, 1998.
I went in to this expecting a movie
that was, if you can excuse me for being more crass than usual, all brains and
no balls. I knew this was a movie, much
like Metropolis, that dealt with a
lot of social concerns of the day. I was
expecting a lack of emotional response to this movie because I very rarely get
a reaction from old horror or mystery.
Occasionally, I get a bit of a rise while watching suspense, but even
then, I’m too used to the graphic tools of the modern slasher flick. It took me about fifteen minutes to write
down my question about whether or not this movie was based off the work of
Peter Kurten. I have the same sort of
unavoidable fascination for serial killers that a train or car accident creates,
you know you shouldn’t look, but you just can’t look away. I’ve actually used the Wikipedia entries on
serial killers to give myself a major case of the wiggens on those nights when
I can’t sleep. Wikipedia, along with a brief mention in the movie Copycat are what taught me about Peter
Kurten, and how I made the connection. It was a very good connection… and there
are lots of comparisons to make between what we see in the movie and what
Germany would be seeing in the late 30s and early 40s.
What surprised me with how creepy I
found the early scenes of the movie that surrounded the actions of the child
murderer played by Peter Lorre. I also
found it interesting to note that the discussion of the murderer’s pathology
was… smart. Concepts that were probably
decades ahead of their time were discussed at length, and were so close to a
modern crime show that I was a little impressed. Even more interesting is that the events
described in this movie, particularly public reaction to the actions of the
murder, resemble what Patricia Cornwell (and other historian accounts of the
time) describes in her biography of Jack the Ripper. I’ve said that good science fiction has a
base in good science, and I’m beginning to think that good murder mysteries
have at least a nugget of truth in them.
And M is a great murder mystery.
I’m going to fess up that I had a few problems with the subtitles, which
is unusual for me. I’m also going to
admit I had some problems getting through the scenes that didn’t have anything
to do with the killer and his work.
There were a few things that I think were… rooted in German culture that
I didn’t get. But the rest of this movie
was absolute magic.
If you like the genre, you’re doing
yourself a disservice by not seeing M. If you’re on the fence, M is the kind of entry to the genre that
could change your mind. Definitely go
check this out.
