This film is entirely silent, and it explains itself, for the most part, with its title.
It is a film, about itself, in a lot of ways. We start with a theater and the setting up of the film for playing. Immediately we see some really interesting shots. Rows of seats, creating a pattern, then all the seats folding down at the same time. Then the crowd files in and the movie "starts."
It is the beginning of the day: People are sleeping, and the city is quiet. Factories lay silently in wait, traffic signals with no operators. We see a man with a camera, getting into a car: The first awake people we've seen. As they drive away, we see more people awake.
One shot shows a man doing something on railroad tracks. We can see a train coming. The following shots imply the guy is hit by the train. Inter-cut with a woman tossing and turning: it's a dream. We see the camera man getting his gear, and going back to the car.
We see the woman getting dressed, people waking up, people cleaning, preparing for their day and early morning traffic.
There is a sequence showing the camera in operation, intercut with window shudders flickering, and a woman blinking fast: Shutter speed.
Continuing on, the work day has started. Trains, Trolleys, miners and traffic officers, and people walking. Factories starting up, machinery moving, then stores opening. We have a sequence of a high frame rate. The type of camera used, I imagine the camera-man cranking like mad.
There are a few sequences with the film cut in half down the middle. The footage for both sides is shot at an angle; right side titled to the right, left to the left.
Since the movie, is about itself, we see a woman editing the footage. Film footage of a single frames, then a few single frames, then showing the strip of film it is from.
At this point, the film starts doing some interesting things: It starts juxtaposing opposites: Wedding Registration, and a couple filling out the paper work. The camera is shown moving. Suddenly, it whips around, and we are viewing Divorce Registration, and a couple filling out the paper work.
Interesting thing I noticed, the woman was hiding her face; a reminder it is a documentary, of sorts. A Funeral, and then a woman giving birth: Life and Death, inter-cut with a marriage.
At one point they show a woman getting a haircut, and a woman working. It seems to represent working class vs upper class in some aspect. Then there was cleaning: a woman cleaning laundry juxaposed with someone having their hair washed.
We start to see some more transportation shots: We see a car speeding and people dodging out of the way. It turns into another shot that is cut in half. However, these two shots, are matched better. Only when the trains look like they collide, do we understand what was done. Then it gets interesting. We have another shot that was similar, except this one is tilted at a dutch angle. Then the shots start spinning and inter-cutting with an eye.
There are also shots with an eye superimposed over a shot of the camera lens. A very straightforward say of saying, "The camera is an eye"
Towards the end there seems to be a lot of fast cutting, and interesting shots where the camera "locks down" on a piece of equipment and follows it, the camera moving and keeping a piece of it in the same portion of the frame.
And then the equipment turns off. All the machinery we saw turn on near the beginning, stops. The last scene is of a beach: recreational, enjoyment after a day of work.
One a side note, Since the film was silent, I knew I was going to have some trouble staying focused. I played the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack in parallel (right after the opening titles) and was amazed to find, how well it fit. It wasn't Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon and The Wizard of Oz, but it was still extremely interesting.
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