This is what characterizes Berlin as a "city film" and prevents it and other city films from becoming reduced to a mere cinematic travelogue. The point is not to operate at the level of the components (as a travelogue would) but rather to get a sense of how the components flow into the whole. This is not dehumanization in the pejorative sense set forth by Ruttmann's critics. The film is not meant to be at the level of the human but at the level of the city—and the city is more than its various components, including its human components. The magic of Berlin is its ability to provide an insight into the emergent qualities that make a city what it is, beyond being a mere composite of the elements within its geographical boundaries.
-- Chadwick Jenkins
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