I watched the Kino Video version of Metropolis last night and I have to say that it is one of the best film restorations I’ve ever seen. The quality of this version of Metropolis rivals a lot of the Criterion Collection DVDs I’ve watched. For a movie made in 1927, the print was super-crisp (almost too crisp, if that is possible). In addition to the great quality, this version claims to be the most complete version of the film and even where the original negatives have been lost (so as to create missing scenes), the creators of the restoration included brief textual explanations about the missing sequences.

As for the film itself, I wish I wouldn’t have waited to long to watch it. I mentioned the Time magazine “9 Great Movies From Nine Decades” during my review of Bad Education, and while Talk To Her was the most recent (for 2000s), Metropolis was the first (for 1920s). Apparently that article has been on my mind lately.

Anyway, I totally understand why Metropolis would make the list — the movie was brilliant.

From my understanding, the lasting legacy of Metropolis has been its dystopian vision of the future, but I think the social and feminist themes it raises are also worthy of praise. This was quite a progressive film — and if I can be saying that in 2005, I wonder how it was received in 1927. (Perhaps it is more shocking now since, in my opinion, we have, in many ways, become more conservative in the past 20 years or so — maybe in 1927 people expected films to be more artistic and abstract and tackle philosophical and political issues…)

I definitely want to watch the film again, preferably with commentary. Since the film is silent, I can imagine that having people talk during it would help keep my attention — though I will say that the score for this film is quite gripping, and I am fairly certain that John Williams ripped off a few of the musical themes for Star Wars.

Sometimes when I watch these old “classic” movies, I do so with a little resentment — why should I have to watch such and such film if I want to consider myself to be someone who really appreciates good film. And why should I believe some old critics as to what makes good film and take their recommendations seriously since they tend to hate films I love such as Doom Generation and Lost Highway (okay, I guess some critics do like Lost Highway, but hopefully my point remains…). With Metropolis, I must admit that the critics and history of film criticism are correct — this is a great, must-see, important, artistic film.

I now know of at least two instances when songs appear in films by Wong Kar-Wai and Pedro Almodóvar. It seems that Almodóvar is borrowing from WKW, but I can’t say for sure. All I know is that “Cucurrucucú Paloma” showed up in both Happy Together (WKW) and Talk To Her (Almodóvar) and that WKW used Nat King Cole’s version of “Quizàs, Quizàs, Quizàs” in In The Mood For Love and Almodóvar had a drag queen mimicking Sara Montiel perform it in Almodóvar’s latest, Bad Education (Spanish title: La mala educación).

I really am not sure what is going on with this back-and-forth, and I somehow doubt that Almodóvar and WKW know each other, but I love the fact that these two “difficult” and visually stunning directors are similarly inspired by the same music.

I hate to admit that I wasn’t very impressed with Talk To Her — generally considered to be Almodóvar’s masterpiece and one of the best films of the decade (according to Time magazine). Honestly, I think the movie was too hyped up for me and I plan to revisit it in the future.

Prior to Talk To Her, Almodóvar created All About My Mother, a movie I do genuinely love. It takes a lot for a movie to make me cry, but I vaguely recall crying when main character’s son is killed within the first fifteen minutes of the movie. That says something, if you ask me.

I’m not quite sure whether I like Bad Education more than All About My Mother, but I will say (immediately after watching it) that I do like it more than Talk To Her. Like Talk To Her it has a story-within-a-story thing going on, though I think what was toyed with in Talk To Her was more fully realized and better executed in Bad Education.

Another thing I love (in case you cannot tell by the title of my blog) is the idea of doubles. Sometimes I think my desire to “double” everything makes movies seem unnecessarily complicated to me (i.e. 2046), but overall I think it makes movies much more enjoyable for me. I loved that in Bad Education there were doubles and doubles of doubles and sometimes the person you though someone was a double of was in fact the double of someone else. Although it sounds confusing, Almodóvar knows what he’s doing and the movie is shockingly easy to follow.

Seeing Bad Education inspires me to check out some of Almodóvar’s earlier films and to re-watch All About My Mother. It also makes me want to give Talk To Her another chance — maybe in a couple of months or so. I’m not yet ready to call him one of my favorite directors, but I think the possibility is there.