Noir-a-Thon: M (1931)

The second review from our Noir-a-Thon is Fritz Lang's M; another great piece of proto-noir from 1931.

Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Peter Lorre
Year: 1931
Country of origin: Germany
Language: German

Synopsis: There's a child killer on the loose in a nameless German city; the police manhunt is disturbing the regular workings of the criminal underworld so they join in the hunt.

Unfortunately Leah from What Indie Nights? has university assignments due and couldn't find the time to share her thoughts on this one so I have asked Brian from Brian vs. Movies to share some thoughts after my main review. If you've not been to his blog yet, he is a new LAMB who reviews everything he watches, no matter how bad, which leads to some entertaining reviews of seemingly random movie choices.


Blahblahblahtoby review

Being ranked at #53 on the imdb Top250 you expect the film to be good from a historical point of view or something that people feel the need to say they loved. In the instance of Fritz Lang's M however the accolade is thoroughly deserved from both a film history and a film enjoyment perspective.

Peter Lorre puts in a powerful performance as the child killer and is the only name I recognise from the cast list but in no way is he the main character of this ensemble piece. Fritz Lang chooses to tell the story from a multitude of perspectives, the child on the streets, the worried parents, the police, the gangsters, the mob and finally the killer and in so doing you are taken on a journey of mixed emotions including, quite incredibly, sympathy for the killer.


This truly is masterful film making and superb visual storytelling from Lang. At times we were quite shocked at how advanced some of his techniques were, making last weeks Blue Angel seem positively simplistic in comparison. The three act structure is divided in to what would become melodrama, police procedural and heist movie signifiers as we are treated to montage, dual narrative, scientific explanation, social commentary, the first use of a leitmotif in association with a killer and more.

Looking over Dugnant's noir signifiers I think this one manages to touch on 9 of the 10 points without really being about any one of them. Crime as Social Criticism and Blacks and Reds are accounted for by the final message "this won't bring back our children, one has to watch over the children" taken to be an anti National Socialism message in the years before Hitler's rise to power. Gangsters and On The Run are featured aspects with the fearful killer running from the gangsters arriving to kill him en masse. The theory that it is the fate of the killer to kill, it's in his DNA, leads you towards Hostage to Fortune whilst the fact that he is a sexually deviant child killer covers Psychopaths and Sexual Pathology and of course the constant use of reflections in mirrors and windows covers Portraits and Doubles. All early examples of the key notes of the film noir style finding their feet in this movie made decades before it's time. There's little surprise that Lang would go on to become a major film maker in the noir movement.


It really is a masterpiece worthy of the name, if you haven't seen it then you really should. For pure enjoyment it's worthwhile and from a film history perspective it's invaluable. I would rate this as a 9 without any hesitation at all. Not many films are as good as this.


Brian vs. Movies capsule review

Greetings, Blahblahblahgay folks! I am Brian from Brian Vs. Movies. Some of my favorite movies are film noir, but I have never delved too deeply into the waters of noir. I wanted to start with one of the originals, but I was a little apprehensive about watching M. Sure, it's famous, but it's old. And German. I don't know what you know about 1931 Germany, but they weren't famous for their humor; this promised to be a viewing that was full of capital-A "Art" that I would write off as being educational and nothing more.


I'm happy to say that my presumptions were way off base. M may be eighty years old, but some aspects of it are strikingly modern. Most critics will spend their time on Fritz Lang's excellent cinematography --- and with good reason --- but the scenes that captured my attention belonged to the star. This was future noir all-star Peter Lorre's big dramatic break, and he delivers a great monologue toward the end of the film about evil as a choice or compulsion that is years ahead of its time. He didn't get a whole lot of screen time, but this is a great showcase for Lorre's talents, particularly his ability to look genuinely panicked. The story has lost some of its shock value over the years as the story elements have been recycled over and over, but M is still a film that stands the test of time, both as Art and as entertainment.

You can read Brian's full review here and for further reading check out the Big Thoughts From A Small Mind review, Andy Buckle's review and this piece from Matt's Film Reviews. The most indepth appreciation I've read outside of a textbook came from Brent at The Silver Screen.


And that's all we have time for this week, we had hoped to watch Shanghai Express this week but with assignments due in I decided not to pressure Leah. Leave some blah below and if you have anything you want to contribute to the Shanghai Express or Pepe Le Moko posts let me know.

I went to the cinema for the first time in forever this week and saw some trailers and it reminded me of the scene in Brief Encounter where the two leads watch some terrible 'Coming Attractions' for what would be screening in the following weeks. So here are some coming attractions for the Noir-a-Thon.

The Week In Movies 15/8/11 - 21/8/11

I feel like I've outdone myself this week. A fair few movies seen. Perhaps I should've used the time to write my novel or my script? Oh well. It'll happen when it happens.


The second noir night means we saw Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's brilliant M, review to be posted Tuesday as always. And my favourite movie of the week was Quiet City, which was reviewed here on Friday in case you missed it.


A bizarre combination of movies you may think but these things are always going to occur when you watch so many films and then pick based on what mood you're in.

Continuing my love affair with Adrienne Shelly I went back to her directorial debut and final film before her murder, Waitress. Strangely after seeing her earlier work I didn't enjoy this one quite so much but for Leah it had the opposite effect and she liked it a lot more, even singing the pie making song performed by Keri Russell in the movie, all day. It's a sweet tale of love and hope and pie with some enjoyable performances from Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion amongst others.

The newest Studio Ghibli animated movie is known either as The Borrower Arrietty or simply Arrietty and was based on the Mary Norton novel The Borrowers. It's another piece of beautiful animation as you would expect from the studio and the story is sweet and faithful despite it's slight update and switch of locales. I highly recommend it as I would any of their movies but for me there will only ever be one adaptation of this novel and that was the BBC TV version starring Ian Holm or Bilbo as he will almost certainly be known as forever. For indepth analysis go see thecynicalgamer at Film Ha Ha for his great review which gave me the push I needed to actually get around to seeing this one.

Another recommendation from Bonjour Tristesse this week, the Rupert Everett starring zombie movie Cemetery Man. With a tagline of "Zombies, Guns and Sex. Oh My!" you'd be a fool to miss this one. It was low budget and strange but very good. At times I had no idea what I was watching, it felt like both an existential dramedy and a surreal zombie flick with moments and connections reminding me of Angel Heart and Shaun of the Dead amongst others. It was based on a novel by the same guy who wrote the Dylan Dog graphic novels which raised my interest and there's some similarities between the main characters and the worlds both stories use but aside from that they are very different beasts indeed. This is not horror and is worth seeing for people interested in strange and little known movies.


I actually went to a cinema twice this week, a rarity indeed. I took myself off to see Senna by myself because I could find nobody even slightly interested in seeing a documentary about a formula 1 driver and loved it so much that I had to write a review straight away.

We got free passes from the very excellent Pigeonhole hipster boutique in Perth to see the Mike Mills movie Beginners. To be disappointed would have required expecting something from the film but when the movie ended the mood in the full auditorium was something approaching apathy, I've been to the cinema when the crowd have been unimpressed and when they've enjoyed themselves but never experienced apathy before. I got the distinct impression that they were happy it had finished but weren't unimpressed by what they had witnessed. I thought it was OK, solid film making with a generic indie hipster girl opposite Ewan McGregor and his once more ridiculous American accent. They were both good and they had good chemistry but I didn't really care because their story was interspersed with the uplifting sad story of his recently out-of-the-closet dad living life to the full before dying of cancer. I could have watched either story on their own and enjoyed them but together they cancel each other out and I ended up not too fussed about either of them.

And then came the evening of watching movies we love, love, love.

Two of my favourite movies of 2009 and two of the most underrated movies of recent years in my opinion. You could class me as a film snob, in fact I regularly use the term in self defence but I have no problem in defending Jennifer's Body. Diablo Cody's follow up to Juno is a pitch perfect teen comedy that plays with the conventions of teen horror movies. Yes it probably helps to get a lot of the references and find them funny and enjoy the emo soundtrack but how can you not love Adam Brody in this movie? He is perfect as the lame indie singer who desperately wants to be like that guy from Maroon 5.

The same goes for Gamer, Gerard Butler is awesome in this movie but that is not reason enough for me to love it (otherwise I'd love Law Abiding Citizen too) Neveldine and Taylor have created some superb near future sci-fi with this film. So rarely does it happen that people can take current technology and societal behaviour and make assumptions about what might come next to create a wonderfully funny and realistic science fiction idea. I loved the concept of Society as the next step for Second Life and Slayers as the next step for all this reality TV we're inundated with. Michael C. Hall owns his role and the musical/dance number comes out of the blue and is brilliant. Great performance from Logan Lerman as well, he was totally wasted in that Percy Jackson movie. How people can't enjoy this movie for the good time it is, is beyond me. I happily place it alongside such classic films of the genre as Running Man and Total Recall.

Last but not least, today is the wonderfully talented young blogger Stevee's 16th birthday, go over to her great blog Cinematic Paradox and wish her a happy birthday. If I had her taste in films when I was 16 and was writing half as well as she does I probably wouldn't be here blogging about film.

A heavy week, please discuss in the blahs, I do love it when you leave me blahs. Any suggestion on what I should watch this week? I have two days off work and I might hide from the rain.