Feeling Trapped in M

Watching M, directed by Fritz Lang, is like being pulled in every direction while also being crushed at the same time. It's a confusing feeling, much like the film.  It challenges expectations and goes headlong into a morally grey area.

We are shown many shots that show the murderer, Hans Beckert, being trapped by other shapes on the screen. Beckert's trail is finally picked up about halfway through the film while a policeman is searching his apartment. Immediately after that scene we are shown Beckert's face for the first time. This is a challenging development because the audience is prone to assume this is a mystery and it probably wouldn't be solved until the end of the film. However, we see Beckert halfway through, and the film becomes something else entirely. The first time we are shown Beckert his face is framed in the reflection of a mirror in a shop window--foreshadowing his inevitable capture and as a metaphor for the new evidence found by the police that are leading them closer to him.

On the other side of the law we see the criminal underworld, who have already been compared very closely to the police force earlier by Lang's crosscutting of the two groups' meetings on how to capture the murderer. While they are not on the trail of Beckert as early as the police, they are the group that captures him. They are only able to capture him by luck when the blind balloon salesman hears him whistling a familiar tune.

This is Lang's first film to use sound and his various experiments with sound as an artistic element of cinema are evident. Sound is used as a plot device by leading to the capture of the murderer. The absence of sound is used to indicate the absence of children. Silence is also used to heighten the tension in many scenes. What might Lang be trying to say about this semi-new technology? Is it a force of good? Is it evil? How should it be used in film? I think those questions could be answered yes, also yes, and however you need to, respectively. Lang is using sound just like any filmmaker would use visuals: in any way that was necessary to best convey the story.

As the story progresses we are continuously trying to find who to relate to, and as the tension builds and builds, we're not sure why. When they are searching for Beckert in the attic, what should our expectation be and why are we scared it won't happen? Are we afraid of Beckert being found because we should see him as our main character, our tragic hero? Or are we afraid he'll get away with it all? Either way, no matter who you might be rooting for, we feel our expectations being challenged constantly. You can be on whichever side you want in the film, but it seems like every side is equally depraved. The police are dirty and unfair in the bar, but want to stop the murders because that is their duty; the criminals are violent and want to murder the murderer,  but only because they want to continue their regular debauchery; and Beckert is a child raping murderer, but he can't stop himself. Every force in the movie has certain motivations, but it's up to the audience to decide which force we might want to side with, if any.

The character of Beckert himself is very interesting. He represents some of the worst evil in the world, and yet he's a chubby man with a baby face. The scenes showing the empty, silent building after Beckert's capture echo the earlier scenes showing the empty, silent city streets when Beckert captures Elsie. This comparison might be suggesting that Beckert himself is very childlike. He is driven only by the maniacal force inside him, that manifests itself as an audible whistling. The same whistling that will ultimately be his downfall. Perhaps that same inner force wanted him to be captured. Beckert is doomed, which becomes more and more obvious as the film progresses. But his capture is not really what makes the film so challenging. It's what happens to Beckert after that raises many questions about morality, who really is a force of good in our society, how can working class parents protect their children, should we punish those who seem so compulsive in their sins that they cannot be stopped, etc.

It's amazing that such an original film could be created so early in the history of the art form. It transcends genres and even common conceptions of morality. The movie creates tension out of unclear motivations. It brings us in expecting a particular kind of movie, shatters that expectation and the next one we create, and it keeps challenging what we expect, and what we want, and in the end we feel trapped, like Beckert, or the police, or the criminals, or even the parents, in what we expect, and what we end up with.