The city symphony is perhaps the only genre that belongs almost exclusively to the 1920s. It celebrates the splendour of modernity or denounces the decadence and decay of urban life. Occasionally it does both. These urban documentaries have no stars, no characters and no plot. Their structure is borrowed from the movements and motifs of orchestral symphonies or the times of day rather than the dynamics of narrative tempo. At their most avant-garde, they are examples of pure cinema: Movement and abstraction animated by the camera. In their most documentary form, they are precursors of slow cinema: minimalist in style, meticulous in observation.