Berlin awakens from its slumber and becomes a legend. 1927, five years before the end of the Weimar Republic: a city on the brink of its downfall. A kaleidoscope of impressions that paints a vivid picture of this metropolis of four million: from the first light of dawn, when the first commuter trains roll in, to late at night, when the neon signs of movie theaters and dance halls are reflected on the rain-soaked asphalt. Hustle and bustle and tranquility, poverty and wealth, office workers, flâneurs, and, time and again, buses, streetcars, subways, cars, bicycles, and streams of pedestrians as the beating heart of the metropolitan rhythm: Walter Ruttmann’s classic is a fascinating journey back in time to Berlin 100 years ago and a pioneering work of documentary film. Ruttmann constructed the film around carefully arranged sequences of movement following a symphonic form, whose rhythm hypnotizes the viewer, conveys a sense of speed, and creates a new meaning that transcends the literal representation of the film footage.