Horizons Of Hope: Metropolis (1927)

Meet us at the Sheen Center for this German Expressionist Sci-Fi classic, followed by a thoughtful talkback with Dr. Matthew Clemente of Boston College.  This film school favorite depicts a future society ruled by an aristocracy living in luxury above ground while the workers suffer miserably underground, comforted only by the religious faith of a young woman (Brigitte Helm) in whose likeness a sinister scientist (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) fashions a robot inciting the workers to rebel but all ends in reconciliation. Directed by Fritz Lang, the story's melodramatic turns and woolly finale may be dated but not its vivid pictorial sense, grandly expressionistic decor and theme of social justice.