BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY (1927) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Walther Ruttmann
A remarkable documentary tracking a day in the life of Berlin at about the half-way point between the two world wars. Some parts were obviously staged, but even those look real enough. The most startling: a sequence somewhere in the middle, a series of increasingly tight closeups of a woman about to commit suicide. Like Dziga Vertov's "Man With a Movie Camera" (released two years later), Ruttmann's eye doesn't miss anything. Speeding trains, empty streets, a man walking a dog, kids going to school, people walking to work, taxicabs, typewriters, factory machinery, horse-drawn wagons, a nightclub, a cinema, a coffin, a cat. From early morning to late at night, it's all there. The print I saw on YouTube had no sound at all, not even a musical score, but the picture quality was exceptional. If you're cruising for something to look at some night, and you've got an hour to spare, check it out.
