This is a film about the machine age. Chaplin’s lovable character is repeatedly swallowed up by machines both literal and figurative: the gigantic gear-filled edifice at the factory where he works, social movements, and the government. Set against the mechanization of the modern age, he has only his most human qualities of love, compassion, and a boundless persistence in hope. Prefiguring modern dystopias, from 1984 to Dilbert, and full of outstanding set pieces, this deeply serious but gentle satire is no less relevant or enjoyable today than it was almost eighty years ago.
—Robert Dixon
Arts & Faith Lists:
2014 Top 25 Divine Comedies — #6