M (1931) - film review

Berlin is in a state of terror as a serial killer roams the streets after dark, abducting and killing young children.  Public opinion compels the police to intensify their search for the killer, and in the process they round up scores of criminals who have nothing to do with the murders.  Realising that their crooked exploits are under threat by this increased police activity, the leaders of the criminal underworld get together and resolve to capture the killer.  A trap is laid and the murderer is uncovered.  But who will get to him first, the police or the crooks...?

Fritz Lang’s first sound film is often cited as the first and greatest of all psychological thrillers.  The expressionistic style which was prevalent in German cinema of the late 1920s is brilliantly used by Lang to create a sense of claustrophobic paranoia and panic, a world of shadows, suspicions and betrayals that is in the process of collapsing in on itself.  Distorted camera angles and ingenious use of sound add to the impression of a society that is degenerating into frenzied chaos, evoking a terrifying mass hysteria that is contrasted very effectively with the insanity of a schizophrenic murderer.

As the chubby, pop-eyed killer, Peter Lorre manages to be sympathetic and chilling. It is the first significant role of his career, and the kind of role for which he is best known.   Lorre has the aura of menace of a dangerous psychopath but he also conveys a touching child-like pathos, most notably in the film’s great set piece, the kangaroo trial at the end of the film.  Lorre’s character is condemned because he cannot help killing, and so it is society’s obligation to kill him.  Having made this premise logical, Lang suddenly switches the emphasis so that the killer is portrayed as a sick man and the society that condemns him is sicker still.  Much has been written about possible double meanings in all of this – one interpretation is that Lang is foreseeing the threat posed by the growth of fascism in his country.  Alternatively, he may just be comparing the debious morality of the police / judicial system and the criminal underworld – both have the rules, methods and sanctions, both engender the worst aspects of human nature.  Lang makes this point unambiguously in the sequences where he cuts, seamlessly, between scenes involving the police and those involving the crooks, to the point that it is hard to separate one side from the other.

M is a film that is disturbing at many levels.  The way in which it is filmed, with bold expressionistic iconography, lends it the character of a drug-induced Kafkaesque nightmare, so that even without dialogue it provides a chilling experience.  Add to that a taut, well-crafted storyline filled with convincing characters, together with a subtext which admits various interpretations, and the overall impression is a harrowing illustration of how close a seemingly well-ordered society is to total anarchy.  Peter Lorre’s character is an effective visual metaphor for the world he lives in.  On the surface, he is respectable, even likable man of no real significance.  Yet, given the right stimulus, this outward shell of normality is cracked and a crazed killer is unleashed.  It could be argued that German society underwent a similar kind of metamorphosis in the years that followed the initial release of this film...

© James Travers 2005

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