Der Riese looks like a cinematographic experiment in remoteness. At the start we see a huge flash of light shoot across the skyline of a large German city. Is it a UFO?Only the beginning and end of the film are in colour. Between we see an oppressive picture of a society through a series of bird’s eye views that look as if they were shot through sur¡veillance cameras. The pictures tell a story in which people seem to have no other function that as moving parts of a static set. Are they the shots as seen from the observation room of a spaceship?Slowly the viewer gets used to this strange angle. Who are the beings that just walk back and forth in department stores, garages, in the street? What are they doing? What motivates them?
