Late in life, after finding success in Hollywood, Fritz Lang returned to Germany after the "economic miracle" had unfolded and the US had rebuilt West Germany into a "modern capitalist democracy." This film, the director's last, is at first glance a standard, if effective, thriller. But a remotely less cursory viewing show it to be a critique of the filmmaker's home-country as he found it upon his return.
Most of the action takes place in a hotel that has retained its Nazi-era capacity for complete surveillance of its inhabitants. This technology falls into the hands of a faceless master-criminal currently thought dead who once tried to take over the world. To even call this allegory is perhaps a step far. Lang clearly sees in the "new Germany" a social apparatus waiting to be usurped by a resurgent fascism, one that has only become dormant, not dead.
The only non-radical note in the movie is that the handsome protagonist is an American industrialist, a necessary concession, perhaps, as it was this class of person who financed this film.
The location and language is not the only way in which Lang here returns to his roots. The set pieces of the hotel clearly call to mind the Expressionism of his early years.
The only non-radical note in the movie is that the handsome protagonist is an American industrialist, a necessary concession, perhaps, as it was this class of person who financed this film.
The location and language is not the only way in which Lang here returns to his roots. The set pieces of the hotel clearly call to mind the Expressionism of his early years.