Watch Berlin: Symphony of a Great City For Free

Brilliant and touching

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A day in the life of 1920's Berlin, Walter Ruttmann's images on screen is structured in a way showing us the great city. Ruttman toured us in the Berlin's awakening, mid-day rest, busy afternoon life, and evening leisure. A normal day in the heart of the city Berlin, but a day full of life and energy. On the whole, this sequence focuses primarily on people. Though it's true that it is not so much about the people of Berlin, although we see many of them, but it is not a film about the life of Berlin people, it is Berlin seen as a living organism.Scenes are edited and cut together based on relationships of image, motion, point of view, and content- the five reel film is divided into five acts. The first act starts the day, beginning with calm waters and a representation of a sunrise. The opening sequence with the train but it's when the train reaches the station that the main part of the movie really begins, presenting an interesting typical day in Berlin.Second act shows more how the usual morning starts, with the opening of gates, shutters, windows, doors, people busy cleaning, fruit carts, children going to school. A montage of monkeys biting one another, telephone operators, machinery, and dogs fighting is mixed into the general busy work of the office.The third act showed the busy side of the street's of the great city wherein a variety of people of different classes going about their business. There are industrial workers, construction workers, salespeople, shoppers, etc. A fight between two men breaks out briefly, but is quickly stopped by bystanders and a policeman. There are many crowds, a father and bride arriving at a wedding and a strong contrast of some flirtation on the street. Fourth is the lunch break where 12:00 is shown on a clock. Berliners start to eat and drink, and animals feed. There is a scene in the film wherein social issue was shown in symbolism form wherein during the lunch hour sequences, when we see the rich eating in fancy restaurants and the poor eating in harder conditions. Ruttmann then follows it up with the shots of a lion eating his big meal of raw flesh and a few kittens looking for food in the garbage. This is the only real significant hint but rather than seem like the portrayal of a serious social issue of Marxist ideology, that one of Marx's arguments is the difference of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. And as the camera moves among the wealthy and the less fortunate, while children play and factories roar. Words from a newspaper fly off the screen: Murder! Marriage! Money! Money! Money! A wild eyed woman throws herself from a bridge and disappears into the dark water while office workers pound the keys of their typewriters then on the lover's boat on a peaceful city lake. It shows how Ruttman has the power to shift the scenes gracefully and violently manner through each frame shown.Finally, the fifth act is the people's entertainment at night. Montage of entertainments includes hockey, indoor races, boxing and dance contests. The city starts to spin wildly, transitions into a majestic fireworks display, and thus concludes the day of the great city Berlin.This fascinating classic never loses its ability to capture the attention and imagination of its audience. The technique is creative and resourceful, and the images are significant. Everything fits together to make the idea work wonderfully well, truly a great classic and contribution to the world of cinema. Although the film seem portray the lives of the people in the city, humanity is not its focal topic rather the Berlin City itself, how it has come to life in film and how it will be remembered and visited in the time capsule Ruttmann has created for the whole world to see and appreciate.

This documentary has much to answer for, since it started a trend for city-based films: in its case, being a non-narrative look at the thriving German metropolis (though there were a number made in that vein), the original impact has essentially faded with imitation – and its place in the cinematic pantheon overtaken by such classic dramas of 'ordinary people' as F.W. Murnau's SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927) and King Vidor's THE CROWD (1928). The end result – bafflingly split into five unnamed acts, thus boasting no specific characteristic to differentiate them! – nevertheless makes for a veritable time-capsule of an era that is long-gone and, therefore, looked upon now with a certain degree of romantic nostalgia.The style – among the credits are such luminaries of German Expressionism as Carl Mayer and Karl Freund! – is intermittently flamboyant (notably the opening rapid-fire montage simulating a speeding train's entry into Berlin and the concluding rotating shot of the city at night dissolving into a full-blown fireworks display) but generally pretty straightforward, content merely to document the bustling ongoing activity – encompassing virtually all strata of society – from early morning till after dark (literally "a day in the life"). Still, for all its supposed naturalism (including the unsightly image of a pair of pigeons nonchalantly pecking away at a turd on the pavement!), certain scenes were obviously staged for maximum impact – such as a tussle between two men that causes such a commotion as to necessitate Police intervention (which is then conveniently captured from all possible angles!).

Walter Ruttmann's documentary love letter to the German capital, shows the city from the morning proletariat on their way to work, to the decadent bourgeois night of Wiemar Republic, 1920's high living opulence. It shows the shops and market stalls opening, the streets filling, industry moving. The almost constantly static camera captures both the poverty and the affluence. Along with the single shots of the surroundings, there are the occasional flourish of the avant-garde; kaleidoscopic, spinning images similar in experimental joy as Al Bricks Looney Lens series (Split Skyscrapers, Tenth Avenue, NYC (both 1924)), often using split screens and other such optical effects to create hall- of-mirror comparisons.The films style also often reflects the influence of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov's Soviet montage, a style that suggested sub-textual meaning using a series of juxtaposing images. At the start of Berlin... the working classes, walking to their factories, moving uniformly, then images of cattle, and soldiers are sliced, creating the metaphor. Whilst not as politically motivated as the Soviet's, this is still an interesting document of a city living in stark contrasts, in a country still ravaged by the failures of WWI. But watching it now, you become reflective of the changes to this important city. It's history since the making of this film (events that the director would never see, due to his death in 1941), which is devastated by war, and divided by a wall. It's always fascinating to see visual "objects" of the past. Whilst this doesn't have the interesting longevity of the more political Soviet films, this is an important piece of silent-era documentary, and would go on to influence the British documentary movements of the 1930's and 40's.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

A day in the life of 1920's Berlin, with arty mechanical shots, and a variety of urban experiences united by their time of day. This is painfully dull to watch, and has no continuity in terms of story line or characters. Its nice to have an authentic look at the past, and some of the mechanical shots, the whimsical statue-figure shots, and the evening entertainment shots are interesting, but overall it is a massive chore to sit through. It could be the overbearing score that pounds home the urban theme with a punishing tone that detracts from the film, and a kindler and gentler score could mitigate the films lack of entertainment value. Score or not, the overrating on this site of this film is beyond comprehension. People who claim to like this film deserve to watch Man With A Camera, the Russian version of the same thing, which is equally tedious.