Metropolis
1. How does Land use the opening scenes to reflect contextual concerns with rampant industrialisation, the power of the machine and the dangers of a parasitic upper class who flourish at the expense of the workers?
In the opening scenes, the setting is of capitalists exploiting many workers. Hundreds  and thousands of workers are working very hard underground while the Fredersens live an easy and luxurious life on the top. The workers act like robots, they walk in crowds and seem dead. In one scene, the workers walk into a cage and the other crowd of workers walk out and  continue to work.

Of course there are dangers to this. The workers are displeased with their current conditions and are only not revolting and rioting because Maria is influencing them not to. The workers are obviously jealous of the upper class who flourish on their hard work.
The power of machines are overwhelming, humankind literally depends on it, just like we depend on electricity.

The workers are relied on to work on the machine, they are literally slaved to them. The power was demonstrated when the fake Maria convinced the workers to rebel and attack the Fredersens. The city was rendered helpless when the machines were destroyed. Without the machines, the utopia which the “thinkers” live in will be non-functioning.

2.Analyse how Land uses mise-en-scène, costume and symbolism to position the audience toward the ruling class’s in the seemingly utopian futuristic world of 2026.
Lang uses multiple techniques to position the audience toward the ruling class in the seemingly utopian futuristic world of 2026.
Such examples include Buildings like the Tower of Babel which is modelled after Brueghel’s 1563 painting and the costumes which the characters wear. The “thinkers” are on the top of the capitalist pyramid, they live an easy life on the suffering of many others.

The ruling class(thinkers) who live above are very privileged. They live in luxurious buildings such as skyscrapers. Fredersen’s son is a typical young rich boy  who could care less about the workers. This however changes when he sees a beautiful girl named Maria. He follows her to the workers and trades clothes with one of the workers. At that point he learns about the workers.
Other buildings such as Wolfgang’s old house and laboratory also position the audience. It’s full of machines used to invent other machines ( such as the robot Maria ).
The thinkers are typically dressed well, with suits and ties. This is very different to how the others dress. Workers wear plain shirts, pants and hat. Maria however always seems to wear a plain dress

3-4.
How and why does Lang counterpoint the two cities through his representation of the dystopia of the Worker’s City?
The dystopia is represented as an underground working facility, where soulless-like men spend hours operating machines. The utopia however is shown as a paradise,  Lang shows many differences between the thinker’s utopia and the worker’s dystopia.   
He counterpoints the two cities through many different representations. Lang shows that the utopia is very luxurious, while the Worker’s City is very unpleasant, full of identically clothed men operating machines.  When it is the dystopia, the music becomes more intense and quicker, meanwhile the lighting increases in darkness. There is also smoke during the scene where Freder goes underground  to swap clothes with a worker.