Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) is a silent documentary you can watch online on iFILM. In just 69 minutes, director Walter Ruttmann compresses a single day in the German capital, from first light to the small hours.

There's no plot in the usual sense. The camera catches empty streets at dawn, a train racing into the city, shutters and shop windows opening, crowds of workers at factory gates, machines on the line, the lunchtime rush, then cabarets and neon after dark. The footage is cut to rhythm, like a score where trams, wheels, hands and feet stand in for notes. This is mid-1920s Berlin with no narration, a city caught between the wreckage of one war and a crisis still to come.

It's the defining work of the "city symphony" genre and a peak of silent-era avant-garde editing; Edmund Meisel wrote an original score for its premiere. Watch it for pure cinema, image and tempo doing the job words usually do. A real find for anyone curious about the roots of documentary film. Stream Berlin: Symphony of a Great City online on iFILM.