Biblical Allusions in Metropolis

Fritz Lang was born to

a Catholic father and
Jewish mother, so
had rich theological
traditions to draw
from.
The language of
Metropolis - the
themes, the images,
the characters - are
all rooted firmly in the
language of Judeo-
Christian scripture.
The ‘metropolis’ is built on a basis of horizontal stratification. The rich
live in the uppermost levels: as the film puts it, "High in the heavens“.
The workers live in the depths of the mammoth city, far below the
surface of the planet, where no natural light ever reaches.
The Eternal Gardens allude to the Garden of Eden
The New Tower of Babel in the heart of upper Metropolis.
This structure alludes to - and even structurally resembles - the
Tower of Babel from Genesis, Chapter 10.
In charge of the Eternal Gardens and the rest of the ethereal city is
Joh Fredersen. He displays the worst kind of pride when he plays
God, telling his son, that the workers beneath the city are “where
they belong”.
From her first appearance, Maria evokes the Virgin Mary by
entering Freder's garden surrounded by children, her hands
extended over them in saintly grace, and a halo of light around
her head.
Maria represents an angelic figure who viewers later learn has
been preaching the Gospel to the workers and giving them
hope for a brighter future.

Maria’s speeches evoke parallels to John the Baptist's own

sermons from the wilderness, where he foretold the coming of
Jesus. Like John, Maria preaches of the coming of a ‘saviour’
who will rescue his people by uniting the ‘head’ of the upper
city dwellers with the ‘hands’ of those below.
Freder calls the mechanical
Juggernaut that powers the
upper city ‘MOLOCH’, a
Canaanite word meaning
‘king’. Moloch was a god of
the Ammonites, and not a
kind god. Moloch's
worshippers engaged
in the ritual sacrifice of
children, specifically sacrifice
by fire.
Fredersen uses an evil robot doppelganger for Maria who leads the
workers to the destruction of their own city.
Our first glimpse of the robot finds it beneath an inverted, five-
pointed star, a pentacle - a sigil long associated with ceremonial
magic, especially that involved in summoning outside forces.
Visiting the city's red light district, this false Maria hypnotizes a crowd
of aristocratic men with a fevered, near-orgiastic dance, like
something from the pleasure gardens of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Dance Scene
As Freder looks on to the dance, visions
overtake him; images of the Seven Deadly
Sins attacking the city, foreshadowing the
dangers yet to come.
Lang incorporates a passage from Revelation, Chapter 17
which introduces the Whore of Babylon. The robot Maria
becomes an obvious symbol for this Biblical femme fatale
when her seductions entrance the workers into rebellion.
The Maschinenmensch (machine-human) perverts the trust Maria has
formed with the workers, leading them down a path of deception and into
cataclysm. She incites them to attack the machines beneath the city, and the
resulting shockwave of violence climaxes in a flood of biblical proportions,
akin to Genesis, Chapters 6-9.
Freder has been proclaimed the ‘Mediator’. Maria tells Freder his
destiny of creating peace between the heavenly paradise of the city
and the earthly underground. In this new role, Freder represents a
Christ figure. Son of a godly figure and disguised as a worker, Freder
becomes the common ground that unites the two very different
worlds.
"Father, I never knew ten hours could be so long!" mirror
Christ's own agonized, "Father, Father, why have you
forsaken Me?"
It is Freder alone who can bridge the gap between the workers and
their overlord, just as Christ bridges the gap between God and man in
Christian theology.