Set in the year 2026 (and that's coming right up!), Fritz Lang's 1926 masterpiece Metropolis envisions a repressive techno-oligarchy in which soaring Art Deco towers and overhead freeways mock an underclass of techno slaves ruled by a “supertrustee” (Alfred Abel), who lives with his collaborators in the paradisiacal nightclub of Yoshiwara. Lang even posits a virtual woman, an evil doppelganger cloned from the people’s hero and spokeswoman Maria (Brigitte Helm), as another principal force in this exquisite ballet of machines and men. With newly discovered footage found in an archive in Buenos Aires, this remastered version of Metropolis is a must-see for fans of German cinema. Co-presented with the Goethe Institute San Francisco on Saturday, February 19th at 6:00 p.m. at the Pacific Film Institute in Berkeley.
