For a long time Metropolis was, in fact, considered to be “not stylistically unified”. Audiences at the film's premiere in 1927 were simply over-challenged, not at all knowing what to make of the magical and occult themes, in connection with a futuristic technology; at best they deemed it all to be absurd, and many reviews were quite devastating. Today we know that Metropolis was far ahead of its time in dealing with these themes, as it still may be. Globalisation, the emergence of a plutocratic form of rule, the floodings – even if these are presently ascribed to the global warming due to machine-caused CO2 emissions, working robots on the advance, and an atomic energy technology that endangers man and environment because in case of a serious failure it would unleash an extremely destructive potential, as well as the submission under the dictates of time initiated by technological progress, pushing to an unnatural haste; all of this can bring about associations to Metropolis. In experiencing these issues, which have turned into reality, human consciousness has possibly matured so that an understanding of the film's magical-occult part can now be accessed. This is also underscored by the fact that audiences today are especially fascinated by the mixture of action, magical-mythical innuendoes, a futuristic technology (even today), and societal-philosophical deliberations. What makes Metropolis such an extraordinary film is the way in which it manages to embed suspenseful topics into a visual composition – resulting in a work of art at every point. Who in 1927 would have imagined that 74 years later, in 2001, UNESCO would include cinematic art in its catalogue of World Documentary Heritage, for the first time – with Metropolis?