MUBI 2024 Retrospective is here. See our year.
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
8.4
/10
1,803 Ratings

Synopsis

An emblematic ‘city symphony’ film structured to follow the life of Berlin and its inhabitants across the course of a single day, from dawn to dusk, to create “a symphonic film with the thousandfold energies that make up the life of a great city.”

Our take

With a storytelling style influenced by Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Walter Ruttman’s ruminative film (a.k.a. “Symphony of a Metropolis”) provides a unique view of Berlin, capturing an erstwhile era and a specifically meaningful moment in time, just before the beginning of World War II.