Great Film overall

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Contrary to what some others have observed, I don't find this experimental film tedious at all. Certainly, it is priceless as documentation of the fabled Weimar era of this great city — a city that barely existed at all a couple of decades later. Sure, everyone points that out, but as someone who really loves Berlin, I would never minimize or take for granted in any way the importance of that. I see buildings that are long gone. And I look at the faces of these people and I always wonder what happened to them. How many of them were still alive in 1946? We'll never know.But it's even better when you try to view it with the mindset of the era in which it takes place. Film itself was still a fascinating novelty at the time and the filmmakers were still as excited as kids on Christmas morning trying to see what they could do with it. The machinery and mod cons were evidence of a revolutionary new way of life, and the Berlin lifestyle was at the vanguard. Imagine what people in some of the most backward parts of the world would have thought of this back then had they seen it.

Berlin: City Symphony is one of those early experiments in montage - early as in before sound was invented and right after Battleship Potemkin changed everything. It's not always montage, as some might believe from its recommendations (i.e. Koyannasquati), as the director Walter Ruttmann is making documentary as much as city-scape. It's about a full day and night among the dwellers and the objects of a city: the moving trains, the people shuffling by about their various concerns, and the people at jobs and things like a factory at work and phones being answered used for editing fodder.Some of this is dazzling work, cut and speed up to reflect a mood of a city that is vibrant and hectic, imaginative and crazy, and sometimes tending for the dramatic. Ruttmann also has a rather weird design with the pacing at times; a woman in one 'scene' looks over a river, and in a state of sorrow falls over. People rush over to see what has happened, and we see a shot of the water and the woman gone under... and then it cuts right away to a beauty pageant! It throws a viewer off to see Ruttmann's unconventional choices, and how images flow together like the racers (cars, horses, people, boxcars), and there develops a simple but engrossing poetry of people as "actors" in front of a camera on their daily travels or having fun like at the funshow in the auditorium. It's not always as exciting or delirious as a Russian counterpart like Man with a Movie Camera or Kino Eye, but it pays loving tribute to its city at its time and place, showing the light with the dark, the commonplace with the unusual.

A day in the life of 1920's Berlin, with arty mechanical shots, and a variety of urban experiences united by their time of day. This is painfully dull to watch, and has no continuity in terms of story line or characters. Its nice to have an authentic look at the past, and some of the mechanical shots, the whimsical statue-figure shots, and the evening entertainment shots are interesting, but overall it is a massive chore to sit through. It could be the overbearing score that pounds home the urban theme with a punishing tone that detracts from the film, and a kindler and gentler score could mitigate the films lack of entertainment value. Score or not, the overrating on this site of this film is beyond comprehension. People who claim to like this film deserve to watch Man With A Camera, the Russian version of the same thing, which is equally tedious.

It's like Koyaanisqatsi of 20s! It's miraculous! Awesome! It's all about the idea of a great city moving forward up-tempo but still having quite common problems of Germany's twenties – poverty and exacerbation, nevertheless Berlin being one of the most fashionable cities of Europe of that particular time. But it's not the movie's main account. Its atmosphere was created by excellent cameraman work. The frame when a train moves right into you and then suddenly turns away is quite impressive. Never seen that advanced cameraman till Citizen Kane. I'd also definitely recommend watching Ruttmann's 'Lichtspiel Opus I ', an avant-garde animated movie created in 1921.