In a Utopian society where social classes are divided and live separately, a rich man named Freder Fredersen (Gustav Fröhlich) finds a woman with her kids and starts following her... for some strange reason. He then watches as her children disappear out of thin air. This understandingly intrigues him. He then follows the woman and finds an underground world filled with lower-class workers who keep the Utopia running. There are only a few who know of this underground world, one being Freder's father, John Federsen (). He then finds out that the woman who he was following is named Maria, and she wants him to join this underground society. The Utopia is made up of different sections that are referred to as parts of the human body, such as the above ground section being the "head", and the underground section being the "hands". John then goes on to try to shut down the underground machines because it's a movie and they needed a villain.
Whilst watching this film, I noticed an array of elements that the director put in for the sake of art. The attention to detail was outstanding, especially the robot who made me feel uncomfortable. The structural intuition that was imposed didn't go unnoticed by me, quite the contrary actually. I spent more time in this movie admiring the beauty and camerawork than I did paying attention to the story. I even had to look up some plot summaries since I didn't have a clear idea of what actually occurred. It all seemed a little sloppy by today's standards, but for the early 20th century, I could tell that this was a film that influenced many more to come. Mind the inner history nerd in me, but this was developed during the Weimar period, which was a horrific time for poor Germany, and this movie definitely raised some spirits. Long story short, loved the technical aspects, story was passable, and I believe this was an amazing movie for the time and I recommend it to everyone who wants to see an old movie with detail out the wazoo, as the kids say.
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