A child-murderer threatens the serene life in Berlin and alarms the population. The crooks are hindered in their profitable dealings by the police investigations. Therefore parallel to the law and order maintaining forces the organized criminal underworld goes in search of the pathologic murderer. And in fact, the crooks manage to capture him, putting him before an underworld court, which sentences him to death. However, before the murderer is executed, the police appears and arrests him "in the name of law".

A girl playing on the street is approached by a man and follows him. The cut clearly shows that the child is murdered by the man. While he lives his life as a seemingly peaceful citizen, the general public is called upon to help in the search for the murderer. Collective repulsion and collective hate are directed towards the unknown man. Panic grows in the town; hysteria, persecution complexes and latent hate are set free.The organized underworld feels that its "orderly" business is being obstructed by the constant police raids. The underworld becomes a rival to the conventional forces of law and order. Corresponding action is agreed at a meeting of gangsters shown as a parallel to the police conference. The underworld finally identifies the murderer with the help of a blind beggar. The man is hauled before a court of criminals demanding that he be executed. The police can only just prevent the murderer from being lynched.

"M" is one of the high points of Fritz Lang's artistic career. The contradiction between the naivity of the action and the artistic reflection characterizing his earlier films DER MÜDE TOD, DR. MABUSE, DIE NIBELUNGEN and METROPOLIS appears to have been eliminated here.

The central characters are the leaders of the police organization on the one hand and of the underworld organization on the other. The government is largely excluded ("Minister do not appear to understand!"), The film reveals the relationship between collective blindness and organized terror, thus reflecting the last years of the Weimar Republic in this respect. By repeatedly showing the police and organized crime in similar actions, this "anticipates their identity in the political reality of the subsequent years" (U. Gregor/E. Patalas, "History of Film", Gütersloh, 1962).

Quite apart from the fact that "M" is Fritz Lang's first sound film, it also marks a new era in the director's work. The expressionist experiences on which Lang had based his work were not without their uses: his habit of moving his characters about as if they were figures on a huge chessboard made Lang extraordinarily skillful in mastering physical space and in harmoniously using the entire field of vision; in "M", he casts off the compulsion to which he was subjected by the systematic stylization. The personal artistic expression now coincides completely with the natural development of the action. This is clear, for example, in the scene in which the camera looks down from above onto the asphalt expanse of an almost deserted street; two tiny people at the end of the street block the murderer's path. The scene appears to have developed totally at random, yet it precisely matches the dramatic development.

Lang also reveals his expressionist beginnings in the use of real details as symbols and metaphors. Bare ruins and rotting factory halls are given immense expressive power while company logos acquire almost magical intensity.

As in Lang's early films, the use of light is an important element in "M". The interplay of light and shadow produces the "bewitched realism" (Dieter Kuhlbrodt) giving every harmless gesture a deeper fatal meaning and finality. People's thoughts and feelings also appear to be determined by this suspicious world of objects. Lang himself had discovered one common feature in a number of contemporary crimes: "The public's terrible anxiety psychosis, the self-incrimination of mentally inferior people, the denunciations in which the pent-up hate and jealousy of years of living side by side appears to be released."The revolutionary montage, which is still unrivalled today, is characterized by the consistent separation of sight and sound. Lang primarily concentrates on dialogues and dramatically necessary sounds (the whistled Grieg tune) which propel the action forwards or indirectly continue the story.

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1931

Production Year

1931

color

b/w

Aspect Ratio

1:1,19

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Kriminalfilm

Topic

Justice, Violence, Weimar Republic, Film History, Precarity

Available Media

DCP, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Digital Film

Original Version

German (de)

DCP

Subtitles

English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Thai (th), Bulgarian (bg), German (full), Ukrainian (uk)

Note on the Format

DCP Digital mit Version File mit ukrainischen Untertiteln vorhanden

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Thai (th), German (full)

DVD

Subtitles

English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Thai (th), German (full)

Digital Film

Subtitles

English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Thai (th), German (full), Ukrainian (uk)