#atleast less weird than it is in 2020s germany

[lunatic-fandom-space]

when I watched Metropolis (1927) i misread or misunderstood something and for a brief while I thought 'Freder' was the main characters last name and everyone was just calling him by his last name, which i didnt question because at the point in the film it seemed like everyone who was interacting with him was 'beneath him' somehow and also, since the dialogue cards also called him that i thought theres gonna be something about identity or maybe even dehumanization in a "children are defined by their parents' actions"-kinda way, but then he goes to talk to his dad and hes also calling him Freder which is weird to me of course but again, Im watching with the assumption that this is somehow gonna tie in to some theme about identity so I dont really dwell on the fact this weirdo is calling his son by last name. Then theres a dialogue card that i dont misread thats like 'something something Joh Fredersen' and Im like ohhhhhhh nvm, thats their last name and Freder is... the protagonists first name then? okay sure. But once I realize that I start thinking. okay so, i have a hard time explaning whats going on in my head when I watch movie especially without sounding stupid so bear with me here. You know how in medieval europe most people didnt really have last names the same way we do now, they either just had their occupation or their father's first name + -son at the end? Yeah, so I was thinking about the name Frederson as a corruption of Fredersson (Freder's Son) and how that could potentially play into some identity-related themes, because for some reason within the first few minutes I just got really attached to the idea of this movie having themes like that somehow. And like, i guess I wasnt entirely wrong but idk, i wouldnt really say this movie has anything to say about identity so much as I would say that it has the characters swap places a lot. Anyway, then shit goes conpletely off the rails and i forget about my precious Identity Themes for the remainder of the film

And Im telling you all of this because i watched the film a few days and I watched the musical based on it the same day as the film and just a few hours ago I listened to the 2001 german radiodrama and only now did it truly hit me that Freder's full name is.... Freder Fredersen. thats what his dad called him. Honestly that might be the worst of all his crimes against humanity