‘I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment…’
German director Fritz Lang is perhaps best known for his expressionist masterpiece Metropolis. And it sure is a classic. M sees Lang try his hand at something else entirely. While Hollywood was still messing about with the Hays Code, clutching its pearls about showing a man and a woman in bed, Lang was making films about child murderers and lunatics. And who said black and white films are boring…
Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) is insane. Unfortunately for the children of Berlin, this insanity manifests itself through the vicious murder of the city’s innocents. With the locals up in arms and the police chasing circles, will Beckert be brought to justice?
The dark vision of Berlin that Lang brings to life here is one of shadows and fear. The use of chiaroscuro lighting to cast the German capital in darkness ensures that when we finally see Beckert fully lit up, we see his wild eyed brutality in all of its madness. Lorre throws everything into the part and is eerily convincing throughout, but as with Metropolis, it is Lang’s inventive cinematography that is the real star here. The spellbinding conclusion casts the rest of the film in a different light and Lorre’s final monologue is electrifying, a tour-de-force of scenery chewing of which Nic Cage would surely be proud.
M is not quite as captivating as Metropolis, but then, what is? M is the prototype serial killer movie upon which all the others owe a tremendous debt. Lorre and Lang make for an incredible double team. M deserves its status as a classic of German cinema.