[Film Review]How much does your building weigh, Mr. Foster?

This 78mins film tracks the success of the world's leading architects, Norman Foster, and his continuing quest to improve the quality of life through design. It includes interview not only with Norman himself but also from colleagues, friends and other colleagues ranging from artists such as Anish kappor, architects including former partner Richard Rogers to U2 musician Bono.

For me, there were two interesting aspects that was covered by the film. The first thing was his journey from design student to pioneering architect and second thing was Normans ecological and sustainabillity ethos. Indeed, his buildings have provided revolutionary ideas about sustainability issues. Most importantly and ground breaking though is his work on Masdar City, the world’s first and only self-sustainable city in Abu Dhabi, relying completely on its own resources and renewable energy.

The film is so beautiful and captivate to watch that I felt the run time is too short.

After watching the film, I wanted to meet his work in real world and visited British Museum to see and feel his masterpiece in modern world.

[Film Review]Restored 'Metropolis' in BFI

I was really lucky to watch the restored masterpiece Metropolis in BFI. Metropolis is a monumental work. When it was made in 1927, it was Germany's most expensive feature film, a canvas for director Fritz Lang's increasingly extravagant ambitions (it took sixteen months to film). The film's visual effects and set designs for imaginary future city were so nice and real that it was hard to believe that it is produced about 90 years ago.

The film is set in the massive, sprawling futuristic mega-city Metropolis, whose society is divided into two classes: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Completely separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole. One man from the "thinkers" dares visit the underground where the workers toil, and is astonished by what he sees.

The director Lang, inspired by the skyline of New York, created a whole new vision of cities. His inspiration created a special image of the futuristic city that is still enough to impress modern audiences. During watching this movie, I was particularly focused on its architectural background and the scenery of the future city.

The film contains cinematic and thematic links to German Expressionism, though the architecture as portrayed in the film appears based on contemporary Modernism and Art Deco. The latter, a brand-new style in Europe at the time, had not reached mass production yet and was considered an emblem of the bourgeois class, and similarly associated with the ruling class in the film. Rotwang's Art Deco laboratory with its lights and industrial machinery is a forerunner of the Streamline Modern style, highly influential on the look of Frankenstein-style laboratories of "mad scientists" in pop culture. When applied to science fiction, this style is sometimes called Raygun Gothic.

Metropolis's New Tower of Babel(left) and Brueghel's Painting Tower of Babel(right)

The Complete Metropolis - Official Trailer:

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSExdX0tds4