M (1931, Fritz Lang)

”All of which seems to me you could just as easily give up if you learned something useful or if you had jobs, if you weren’t such lazy pigs. But me … I can’t help myself. I have no control over this, this evil thing inside me, the fire, the voices, the torment!”

Working in Germany during the 1930s, Fritz Lang did not make this film during what could be called the height of free expression. Both director and star Peter Lorre fled from German persecution within two years of its release, and the Nazis banned the movie a year later. Regardless, Lang managed to bury his social commentary beneath the surface of his film, for future generations to uncover. M uses the story of serial child killer to expose the ugliness of the larger people. The film unfolds with a series of ironies: the playfully whistled “Peer Gynt” tune becomes a death march, a blind man makes the only reliable eye-witness, criminals run a better investigation than the police, and the violent mob proves to be as monstrous as the killer. The expressionist aesthetic creates a pervasive mood that will linger with viewer long after the final frames.