Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt

Berlin: City Symphony is one of those early experiments in montage - early as in before sound was invented and right after Battleship Potemkin changed everything. It's not always montage, as some might believe from its recommendations (i.e. Koyannasquati), as the director Walter Ruttmann is making documentary as much as city-scape. It's about a full day and night among the dwellers and the objects of a city: the moving trains, the people shuffling by about their various concerns, and the people at jobs and things like a factory at work and phones being answered used for editing fodder.

Some of this is dazzling work, cut and speed up to reflect a mood of a city that is vibrant and hectic, imaginative and crazy, and sometimes tending for the dramatic. Ruttmann also has a rather weird design with the pacing at times; a woman in one 'scene' looks over a river, and in a state of sorrow falls over. People rush over to see what has happened, and we see a shot of the water and the woman gone under... and then it cuts right away to a beauty pageant! It throws a viewer off to see Ruttmann's unconventional choices, and how images flow together like the racers (cars, horses, people, boxcars), and there develops a simple but engrossing poetry of people as "actors" in front of a camera on their daily travels or having fun like at the funshow in the auditorium. It's not always as exciting or delirious as a Russian counterpart like Man with a Movie Camera or Kino Eye, but it pays loving tribute to its city at its time and place, showing the light with the dark, the commonplace with the unusual.

This is a very straightforward and pleasant silent picture that delivers exactly what it promises. Namely: footage of Berlin, its residents, and the whole spectrum of city activities during an ordinary day in 1927. If you have any interest in seeing real life in Weimar Germany, this film is an excellent rental. It opens with an Eisensteinian-style montage sequence, as a train approaches the city. Upon its arrival in Berlin's Union Station, the city is remarkably desolate. As the film progresses, the city begins to wake up, and you are shown residents at work (mostly in factories) and leisure. You will see shopkeepers, businessmen, restauranteurs, policemen, soldiers, politicians; children at play and even some vagrants. The acts become gradually more harsh as the film progresses, with mildly unpleasant imagery beginning to creep in (e.g. shots of dogs fighting, footage of beggars, litter, an arrest, etc.), only to gracefully recede as the film reaches its closing. The final act shows Berlin's night life, which is as lavish and swinging as anything in our own "Roaring 20's." This is an impeccable time capsule and it has something to offer both film and history buffs. Berlin was truly a world city at this time, and it was extremely interesting to see everything in the Weimar's Golden period, before Hitler and the destruction that followed. Technically speaking, it is a very well made and restored film; the footage is crisp and the music was never overwhelming. This is a really easy film to appreciate and it is definitely worthwhile, particularly for history buffs. Highly recommended. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet

An amazing work of the 'slice of life' films of the 20s, really the main and most admirable example along with Dziga vertov's Man With the Movie Camera, to this day, the film remains an effective portrayal of the great city that Berlin was even back when the film was made. In fact, as time goes by, it picks up even greater importance because of the historical value that it holds.

What is truly admirable is the editing and the cinematography. Perhaps even more than the things that are contained in the framework, is the framework itself which has the first impact on the viewer. The wonderful photography, and the skilled editing that is able to go from man to machine, from trains to horses, from workmen to roller-coaster rids, are always elegant and original, even in regards to Vertov's later work mentioned above. It is, in fact, stylistically a Ruttmann work. Although the work of Vertov and Ruttmann are similar, there is a difference in the sense that while The man With the Movie Camera is aware of being a film, and plays with the process of film-making, Berlin actually lets the contents of the framework play out, and never quite interferes with it.

Place: Berlin. Span: one day in the life of the city circa 1927 captured by the camera. We enter by train.

One way to watch this, the most obvious I guess, is as a historic document, a snapshot of life as it was once. The old world just barely impregnated with faint traces of an archaic modernity; street cars, neon signs, busy streets, things we have now but were then just beginning to greet people. So with this mindset, as a museum piece that depicts an old version of our world.

This is fine, but I urge you to engage it differently if you can.

What if instead of merely observing exhibits from behind a glass panel, we get out from the museum into actual life? Instead of settling in for this as a historic - meaning dead, embalmed, academic - glimpse, we invigorate it with life that we know, with sunlight, texture, sound, breath that was then as real as it is now? How would it be in absolute stillness to feel present in the middle of a modern life?

This is how the film was intended after all, it's plainly revealed this way. Not a fossil for generations of curious tourists from the future, but a celebration of life 'now', modern, busy life out the window.

So no longer an old world that faintly reminds us of our own, but a new world, exciting, alluring, mysterious, alive with myriad possibilities. New things everywhere, novel pathways to travel, environments to experience. What I mean is, try to see the city as though you just got off the train and were visiting for the first time. It ends with the camera spinning around a flashing neon sign cut to match with fireworks erupting in the night sky.

I urge you to inhabit this, settle for nothing less. Let its neon flowers blossom in you.

This fascinating classic never loses its ability to capture the attention and stimulate the imagination of its viewers. The technique is creative and resourceful, the photography is beautiful, and the images are memorable. Everything fits together to make the idea work wonderfully well.

The opening sequence with the train is an exciting and well-conceived way to start the movie. As the pace picks up, the rush of images creates an abstract but very realistic sensation, and this train 'ride' is so enjoyable that you almost don't want it to stop.

But it's when the train reaches the station that the main part of the movie begins, presenting a very interesting stylized portrait of a typical day in Berlin, through a carefully-chosen variety of scenes and sights. It's interesting to see how the train imagery keeps coming back from time to time, and this, along with the obvious passage of time as the day progresses, gives it a coherence that makes it much more than just a collage of interesting images and scenes.

There are many interesting individual sequences, but what makes it such a gem is the way that everything fits together. The overall effect is remarkable, and it really has to be seen to be appreciated.