This review is based on the New York Film Annex VHS cassette copyrighted 1998, which I picked up for a buck at Half-Price Books.
The film begins with a lengthy sequence plainly paralleling churchgoers with drunken street bums, as if God and alcohol were comparable. I found myself reminded of some of the apologists for Communism before the fall of the USSR who insisted that the difference between the West and the East was that the East had no homeless. The explanation for the large homeless population in Soviet cities were that they were parasites who were not worthy of consideration.
Much of the remainder of the film is shots of work in mines and factories, living up to he film's subtitle of "Symphony of the Don Basin." Unfortunately, the impact of these sequences is diminished for the American viewer by the fact that the cassette translates neither spoken Russian (by dubbing), or written Russian (by subtitles), and there is quite a bit of both. While the images are interesting, they have lost considerable impact over the years and the many documentaries done on similar subjects since this one. The cassette case includes a blurb by Charlie Chaplin praising the film. I found this interesting inasmuch as Chaplin's major film about industrial order "Modern Times" showed that order to be dehumanizing while this film shows it to be exhilarating.
This film badly needs a major reissue with extensive research and translation. A DVD with a good commentary track would be appreciated. It would give admirers of Dziga Vertov something other than "Man With a Movie Camera" to study.
The film begins with a lengthy sequence plainly paralleling churchgoers with drunken street bums, as if God and alcohol were comparable. I found myself reminded of some of the apologists for Communism before the fall of the USSR who insisted that the difference between the West and the East was that the East had no homeless. The explanation for the large homeless population in Soviet cities were that they were parasites who were not worthy of consideration.
Much of the remainder of the film is shots of work in mines and factories, living up to he film's subtitle of "Symphony of the Don Basin." Unfortunately, the impact of these sequences is diminished for the American viewer by the fact that the cassette translates neither spoken Russian (by dubbing), or written Russian (by subtitles), and there is quite a bit of both. While the images are interesting, they have lost considerable impact over the years and the many documentaries done on similar subjects since this one. The cassette case includes a blurb by Charlie Chaplin praising the film. I found this interesting inasmuch as Chaplin's major film about industrial order "Modern Times" showed that order to be dehumanizing while this film shows it to be exhilarating.
This film badly needs a major reissue with extensive research and translation. A DVD with a good commentary track would be appreciated. It would give admirers of Dziga Vertov something other than "Man With a Movie Camera" to study.