61: M

M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Morder

GER  117m  Dir: Fritz Lang  Key Cast: Peter Lorre

M was Fritz Lang's first film in sound and is regarded by many as his greatest masterpiece. A child murderer is on the loose and the public are demanding his capture. The police are working every angle they can find and the local criminals are suffering because of it so they too try to track down the murderer. 

The film opens with a murder. We see a shadowy figure buy a small girl a balloon whilst her mother asks the neighbours if anyone has seen her. The figure whistles Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" as he leads the girl away before we see the balloon later ominously tangled in some overhead wire and the girl's ball rolling away. 

Much of the film is focused on the hunt for the killer. We see the public reaction as they hound the police force to do something even though the poor officers are barely sleeping as they work on the case. There's one telling moment when a mob attacks a man who innocently talks to a child and the idea of mob justice being highlighted seems even more relevant in a world with social media. 

We see both the police force and a the local crime lords both trying to come up with plans to capture the killer. Lang chooses to cut between the two organizations plotting and there is very little between them- they are both a group of men gathered around a table in a dingy room. 

The identity of the killer is not kept from the audience as we see him portrayed by Peter Lorre in one of his earliest film roles. Lorre doesn't have much to do for most of the film and barely has any lines. We see the killer out on the prowl whistling his tune looking for victims but there's no indication of his motives. It's only in the final scenes that we really hear him speak as he gives a great speech saying he can't help killing people, that it's a compulsion he can't control. 

The gathered crowd demand his death all the same but it leaves us with a moral dilemma. Nearly ninety years later and this is still something the human race hasn't really decided upon. Do serial killers just deserve to be punished because they are killers or should they be treated for mental health problems? Can someone be a murderer and be entirely sane? 

All in all, the film stands up really well. Perhaps the pacing is a little slow for modern tastes and some will be put off by the fact it's both in black and white and in German but it's well-worth sticking with. M is credited with inventing two genres, the police procedural and the serial killer film and it's down to the fantastic way Fritz Lang handled directing the film.