Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis 1927

Preceding Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929), and before Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Walter Ruttmann's urban symphony of Berlin is a semi-documentary in five acts. Employing an enthralling visual rhythm, seamless jump-cuts, double-exposures, and a sense of perpetual motion, this non-narrative love-letter to the bustling German capital documents a single day in the life of Berlin, from sunrise until late at night, and everything in between. Against the backdrop of ceaseless movement, the camera swiftly follows the myriads of workers as they flock into towering factories, then, it moves from work to all sorts of entertainment, never shying away from sharp contrasts: the rich and the poor; humans and heavy machinery; beauty and ugliness.—Nick Riganas