More from the movie corner of Graziella: M
This week’s film takes us to the most amazing foreign land of all, the Past. No, it’s not a historical recreation of ancient times with plentiful digital effects and a sanitized version of how things were. This is a really old film made in 1931 Germany, a few years after the advent of sound and two before the Nazi took power. Fritz Lang’s M was among the first police procedurals to be made and remains one of the best, not only for its suspenseful plot but also for the unsurpassed way it makes a creative use of sound. Furthermore, M contains one of the most famous dramatic monologues on film, and makes you feel the ominous shadow of the Nazi without ever mentioning politics (BTW, Lang would leave Germany two years after M and come to Hollywood where he specialized in thrillers and film noir). Try to avoid spoilers, they are everywhere.
