MThere are monsters among us. They may lurk in the shadows of an alley, in dens of iniquity, or even in plain sight--they might even be us. There is a fever overtaking the city in which Fritz Lang's M takes place, one which stirs the people into a frenzy, one which fosters suspicion and mistrust among the populous. At first glance, it would appear that this fervor is the result of a city-wide manhunt for a serial killer of children, a criminal whose actions are so appalling, that he manages to provoke not just the police, but the criminal element and vagrants to seek him out. But no...this fury has been here for longer than that.
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M was Fritz Lang's first speaking motion picture, and it has a lot to say. Even the title--M...it could be short for "murderer", or "monster"...even for "money". Ultimately, it is short for "mayhem", the mayhem which the killer causes this microcosm of a city, this world in a jar which buzzes like hornets, ready to sting. The movie makes it clear that the mysterious killer of children (Peter Lorre) is a real threat, and that his actions have been persistent and have eluded the authorities for months, even though he has--in some kind of cry for help--tried to make his presence known, first to the police, then to the media. The killer's anonymity and lack of evidence to identify him means that the police are merely treading water, and they make blind efforts to apprehend him. The dissatisfied citizens of the city jump at any suspicious looking character, making accusations and promoting false leads to the police, which only exacerbates the problem. The police, desperate for some kind of lead, even going so far as to make constant raids on gambling dens and press down hard on the criminal element to that end, only makes the heads of the local syndicates band together to come up with their own plan to get the fuzz to cool their jets: find the killer themselves. But the ne'er-do-wells are hardly out to catch the killer out of any sense of benevolence--they bare their teeth too readily for that--but because they, like the police, are being made fools of and are losing money and face as a result of the killer derailing the locomotive of the status quo, even if it is an unintentional side effect. For an early example of a procedural thriller, M is also a surprisingly cynical one. It could easily be said that the only reason that the flame is lit under the police to catch the killer is because they are being pressured by the government--their own meal ticket--to maintain the sense of order, because that's how politicians like it. The whole of the investigation process is a field day, where the professionals are more involved in the pursuit of their own interests than the killer. This cynicism foreshadows the disillusionment that people will have with the institutions which are supposed to bring them justice, but instead are more concerned with fueling their own machine, greased on the oil of real peoples' tragedy. There is a misconception about the police, that they have an obligation to prevent crime--not quite. That may be a circumstance of their role, but their job is to enforce "policy", hence the name. What M portrays here reflects the kind of "love/hate" relationship a society has with the police, one of both animosity and dependence to that governing force, a message which remains astutely poignant today, in the wake of sensational media stories about "police brutality".
And yet this disregards the fact that crime does exist, and that while the police are condemned by the hoodlums in the underground bars for cracking down on them when they should be "catching the killer", turning a blind eye on the so-called "small stuff" doesn't solve any murders, either. Both the criminals' and the citizens' indignation at the increased police presence is fostered by the attitude that the cops don't care, they they just want control. There is a divide, an "us against them" kind of attitude with isn't really the crux of the story, but does identify those parties by their respective affiliations--makes them opposing teams--and the newspapers eat it up with a spoon. The earliest revelations about the killer are promoted by the media, which fires up the city to knee-jerk reactions, enabling their prejudices, doing nothing to quell the hysteria. ("Thankfully, our modern media has taken a much more unbiased and responsible role in journalistic integrity in these enlightened times," he says with a sneer.) When we read the news and hear about stories which make our blood boil, it is worth taking a moment to consider the context, to consider just what our own involvement in these events really are, before we go off half-cocked and are ready to condemn someone based on our limited understanding of a people or person, simply because we read someone's article in a newspaper and thought they were talking to us directly. It can be said that a person is sensible, but that a mob is not just a collection of persons--it is an entity in and of itself, one which loses rationale the larger it grows. The people have panicked, the police are flailing, and the criminals are taking every effort to distance themselves from the provocative murders, taking the proactive approach to hunt the killer down themselves. This distancing--the idea of the criminals banding together to stop the murderer because the police are making things hard for them sounds almost ridiculous, until you consider the riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, when representatives of street gangs came forth and publicly denounced the rioting, proclaiming that they were not involved in the civil unrest--the parallels should be obvious. M is a smoky movie, with a majority of characters engaged at times in smoking cigars, and lots of them, like each man were an ukobach, stoking the flames in the furnace of Hell...our Hell, the world where we all turn the gears and keep the machine going, because the alternative is that we go crazy. Our killer finally gives his testimony under duress, proclaiming that he cannot help his character, cannot help that he is a mad dog, who kills but cannot remember doing it. His "judge" is all brimstone, ready to drop the hammer without remorse, but again he is not driven by sympathy for the slain little girls...merely saving face, merely getting things back to the way they were. The killer is not a villain, but a glitch in the system. There are clear lines between murder and judgment in M, true, but what is unclear is that if there is any real justice in any form.
Recommended for: Fans of a tense thriller about a depraved killer being chased by a whole city, foaming at the mouth for his blood. Fritz Lang does not ask us to pity the ghastly killer, but we are forced to sympathize with his persecution, even if it is against our will.
And yet this disregards the fact that crime does exist, and that while the police are condemned by the hoodlums in the underground bars for cracking down on them when they should be "catching the killer", turning a blind eye on the so-called "small stuff" doesn't solve any murders, either. Both the criminals' and the citizens' indignation at the increased police presence is fostered by the attitude that the cops don't care, they they just want control. There is a divide, an "us against them" kind of attitude with isn't really the crux of the story, but does identify those parties by their respective affiliations--makes them opposing teams--and the newspapers eat it up with a spoon. The earliest revelations about the killer are promoted by the media, which fires up the city to knee-jerk reactions, enabling their prejudices, doing nothing to quell the hysteria. ("Thankfully, our modern media has taken a much more unbiased and responsible role in journalistic integrity in these enlightened times," he says with a sneer.) When we read the news and hear about stories which make our blood boil, it is worth taking a moment to consider the context, to consider just what our own involvement in these events really are, before we go off half-cocked and are ready to condemn someone based on our limited understanding of a people or person, simply because we read someone's article in a newspaper and thought they were talking to us directly. It can be said that a person is sensible, but that a mob is not just a collection of persons--it is an entity in and of itself, one which loses rationale the larger it grows. The people have panicked, the police are flailing, and the criminals are taking every effort to distance themselves from the provocative murders, taking the proactive approach to hunt the killer down themselves. This distancing--the idea of the criminals banding together to stop the murderer because the police are making things hard for them sounds almost ridiculous, until you consider the riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, when representatives of street gangs came forth and publicly denounced the rioting, proclaiming that they were not involved in the civil unrest--the parallels should be obvious. M is a smoky movie, with a majority of characters engaged at times in smoking cigars, and lots of them, like each man were an ukobach, stoking the flames in the furnace of Hell...our Hell, the world where we all turn the gears and keep the machine going, because the alternative is that we go crazy. Our killer finally gives his testimony under duress, proclaiming that he cannot help his character, cannot help that he is a mad dog, who kills but cannot remember doing it. His "judge" is all brimstone, ready to drop the hammer without remorse, but again he is not driven by sympathy for the slain little girls...merely saving face, merely getting things back to the way they were. The killer is not a villain, but a glitch in the system. There are clear lines between murder and judgment in M, true, but what is unclear is that if there is any real justice in any form.
Recommended for: Fans of a tense thriller about a depraved killer being chased by a whole city, foaming at the mouth for his blood. Fritz Lang does not ask us to pity the ghastly killer, but we are forced to sympathize with his persecution, even if it is against our will.