Dis­cov­er the retro­fu­tur­ist thrills of this mod­ern ani­mé classic

“Every epoch dreams its suc­ces­sor,” states text at the begin­ning of Rintaro’s fea­ture-length ani­mé Metrop­o­lis (Metoro­porisu). This quo­ta­tion from the 19^th-cen­tu­ry French his­to­ri­an Jules Michelet cap­tures some­thing of the film’s retro­fu­tur­ist vibe, as we see the director’s tow­er­ing world of tomor­row being erect­ed on the foun­da­tions of yesterday’s cul­tur­al influ­ence. The result is a dizzy­ing post­mod­ern edi­fice, more impres­sive for its shim­mer­ing Steam­punk archi­tec­ture than for the dra­mas accom­mo­dat­ed within.

The two prin­ci­pal ref­er­ence points here are Fritz Lang’s clas­sic silent-era sci-fi Metrop­o­lis, from 1927, and Osamu Tezuka’s very dif­fer­ent, if homony­mous, man­ga from 1949, which screen­writer Kat­suhi­ro Oto­mo has merged into one. Oto­mo has also woven in ele­ments from Rid­ley Scott’s Blade Run­ner (the jazz score, film noir, the robot-hunt­ing ​‘Mar­duks’), from Hayao Miyazaki’s Lapu­ta: Cas­tle in the Sky (the gen­tle ​‘Albert II’ robots and the cli­mac­tic empha­sis on col­laps­ing ver­ti­cals), from James Cameron’s The Ter­mi­na­tor (androids with dam­aged, half-met­al faces) and even from his own graph­ic novel/​film Aki­ra (espe­cial­ly in the final scenes of an individual’s destruc­tive power).

All this overt recom­bin­ing of pre­vi­ous dystopi­an texts brings con­fu­sions of its own. Part of the plot­ting con­cerns the Machi­avel­lian manoeu­vring between dif­fer­ent politi­cians – most notably Pres­i­dent Boone and grand archi­tect Duke Red – for con­trol of the city, if not of the world. Anoth­er part pits the low­er class­es (‘low­er’ lit­er­al­ly, in the sense that they live in under­ground ​‘Zones’) against the sur­face-dwelling elites, although this is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by a clash between the city’s human pro­le­tari­at, and the robot work­ers who have tak­en their jobs.

In the tense atmos­phere lead­ing up to the grand open­ing of the Red Duke’s Babel-like ​‘Zig­gu­rat’, detec­tive Shin­saku Ban arrives from Japan with his young nephew Kenichi in tow, on a mis­sion to track down miss­ing sci­en­tist (and organ traf­fick­er) Dr Laughton – and their inves­ti­ga­tion will lead them to Tima, a super-fem­bot com­mis­sioned by the Red Duke both to replace his dead daugh­ter, and to con­trol the glob­al weapon sys­tem con­cealed in his Zig­gu­rat. Mean­while, the Red Duke’s unloved fos­ter child Rock, jeal­ous of his father’s pref­er­en­tial affec­tion for Tima and har­bour­ing an irra­tional hatred of robots, will do any­thing to stop her ascent to the throne.

Which is to say that there is always a lot hap­pen­ing in Metrop­o­lis, although its cast of thin­ly drawn char­ac­ters – who mouth end­less expo­si­tion and seem as robot­ic as their metal­lic coun­ter­parts – hard­ly serves to engage the viewer’s inter­est or atten­tion. Per­haps Kenichi’s youth­ful pluck­i­ness is a throw­back to the post­war opti­mism of Tezuka’s Astro Boy, or per­haps the stilt­ed char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion and sedate­ly baroque action are intend­ed to res­ur­rect some­thing of Lang’s expres­sion­ism. Cer­tain­ly, the film is best admired for its quirky stylised anachro­nisms, be it the use of iris slows (like old Looney Tunes or Mer­rie Melodies car­toons), or the ever-present cogs and diri­gi­bles, or the scene where Tima is shown hack­ing into the city’s ​“main­frame dri­ve” via an old rotary ​‘can­dle­stick’ telephone.

The ani­ma­tion here boasts a vari­ety of styles, and is at times breath­tak­ing. And the apoc­a­lyp­ti­cal­ly explo­sive end­ing, all improb­a­bly chore­o­graphed to the nos­tal­gic tones of Ray Charles’ ​‘I Can’t Stop Lov­ing You’, almost makes every­thing worth­while. Still, the impres­sion remains that for Eure­ka Enter­tain­ment, who have exhaus­tive­ly released every ver­sion of Lang’s Metrop­o­lis avail­able, this film rep­re­sents the sort of com­pletism that only true obses­sives (of whom there are no doubt many) will appreciate.

Metrop­o­lis is released by Eure­ka Enter­tain­ment in a Lim­it­ed Edi­tion Steel­Book DVD on 16 Jan­u­ary. A Spe­cial Dual-For­mat edi­tion will fol­low on 13 March.