Madeline
The M Movie keeps coming up when I look for great classic films so I took the plunge and watched it like the good little writer about movies that I am. Now that I have seen it, I get why this movie was held so high and did not get lost in the many films that have come after. This was clearly a movie before its time. A movie that could not be made in the same style if made today, but still a movie before its time.
Premise of The M Movie
This movie is more or less broken into two parts, before we see the murder’s face and after. It takes some time to get into this movie as the beginning is all about old white German men sitting around figuring out how they will catch the child killer. But when a blind balloon pedlar hears the same whistling, the police now has a target.
The M, the title of the M movie and the image on the movie poster, is based on the chalk that the person who identifies the murder leaves on the murder’s back by clapping him on the back after tracing an M onto his hand with chalk. This is how he is able to call in the identity of the murderer and have others around the city identify him. Once he is identified, he is marked as an outcast or, more specifically, a murderer of young girls. He is then hunted down by mobs of people with no exits in sight.
The Cinematography
Although it is a black and white film, the cinematography really stood out to me. The framing and the lenses chosen for specific shots contribute a lot to this movie. There is not a single shot that does not scream that it was set up to be specific and show something very specific. There are also some difficult shots that made me verbalize how obvious the art that went into it was.
For example, there is one scene near the end that I am convinced was a picture added to the film during editing. The scene scans over one hundred or more people in a small room with low ceilings and not one person moves. I was looking for any sign of movement during the scene. Regardless of whether it was a photo or live, to pull off the feeling the scene gives is not a small feat.
The Audio
Because I am not familiar with this era of film in Germany, I am unsure if the audio was part of the style of the time or if the audio was a deliberate choice. The film, in general, is a very quiet film. The movie starts with a child’s song. Then has dialog with long spaces of silence. I found myself checking the volume multiple times while watching the film. And then the murderer starts whistling and that is when the silence starts to become obvious. But because the whistling was such a large part of the storyline, I would imagine that the silence was not not a deliberate choice.
Final Thoughts
The M Movie is a film that was hard to get started. The storyline is setting up the hate for the person who overtakes the rest of the film. But talking about how to capture a killer can only be so entertaining. That being said, when the storyline does pick up and we then met the murderer, the film gets good and turning it off is no longer feels like an option. In addition, if it was boring at times there was many other things to pay attention to, such as the cinematography, during the slow parts.
