journal features

movie review - M

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2002.09.12

This is a creepy German movie about a serial murderer of children. He's driven to these crimes in an industrial city where the police proove so distruptive to organized crime in their search for him that the mobsters decide to step in to the investigation, just to preserve their interests. It becomes a race between the law and the mob to find the killer first, and ultimately, it's the gangsters (and the citizenry) who identify and capture him.

The rest of the movie hinges on what they do with him after that.

The acting, especially on the part of Peter Lorre as the killer, is spot on. The plot moves in a strange, 70-years-old-and-from-far-away manner, which adds to the menacing aura quite well.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

—Hermann Goering