Don't Want To. Must.

Filmmaker Fritz Lang is best known today for his masterpiece Metropolis. He made other great films, one of which is entitled M.

M is a powerful film about compulsion and free will. Spoiler alert: A serial killer is murdering children, and the police are struggling to find the perpetrator. In their desperate hunt, the police harass the city’s criminals in their hangouts and generally interfere with their business. The criminals realize that to get the police off their back they need to find the murderer themselves.

Peter Lorre plays the murderer, and he brilliantly portrays the emotions generated by his compulsion: lustful attraction, agonized repulsion, and the irresistible pull towards action.

The criminals catch Lorre and put him on trial. Lorre tries to explain that he couldn’t help himself: he was compelled to commit the murders and regretted them later. At one point he cries in anguish, “Don’t want to. Must! Don’t want to. Must!” One of the criminals is assigned to play Lorre’s defense counsel, and he offers an inspired argument: if Lorre was truly incapable of acting otherwise, he couldn’t be found guilty.

I’ve given away the outlines of the plot, but this film is well worth watching both on its general merits, and also as a powerful statement about free will, the uncontrollable nature of compulsion, and what that means about punishment.