Up until now, I don't think I've seen any movies focusing on the Russian Revolution except for Dr. Zhivago. This film is a great example of not just how to make a movie set in this time, but also how to properly do a silent film. When done correctly, the amount of excitement you can get while watching rivals that of modern day titles. The Last Command is a story of how both times and people change, and once proud men can be reduced to nothing. It also shows how there are some people in life you will never forget even if you want to, and how ironic it is to want to forget someone because you loved them too much. The movie starts on the set of a film in the late 1920s. The director of the film, Leo (William Powell) is trying to find a suitable actor to play the role of a general. He comes across a picture of someone he used to know named Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings) and chooses him to play the part. After Sergius shows up, some other actor notices his head keeps moving involuntarily, almost like he has Parkinson's or is just extremely nervous. A flashback encompassing most of the movie ensues, in which we see Sergius' past and why he is now traumatized. It is 1917, and russia has lost countless men on the battlefields of World War I. The country has no choice but to seek a peace treaty with the German Empire, as russia is also simultaneous being torn apart from the inside by communist revolutionaries. Sergius, who is related to Tsar Nicholas II, is in charge of all of russia's armies. He is told that two people chosen to put on a show for soldiers are communists and should be detained. One of them is the same Leo who is directing the current day movie Sergius is a part of. Sergius hits him in the face with a whip after he proclaims it takes no courage to sit in a cozy office while sending more men to the battlefield to die. The other "dangerous communist" is Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent), a friend of Leo's who quickly becomes Sergius' love interest. He gives her an expensive necklace. Sergius eventually comes to realize Natalie is much more than a pretty face. She knows that the men giving their lives fighting the enemy are doing so in order to save something greater than millions of lives: russia. While meeting her in her room later, she plans on shooting him, but is unable to do so. While she is still firm in her belief that the country will be better off under the political system she believes in, she can't help but love this man who hates bolshevism. Bolsheviks later hijack a train Natalie and Sergius are on, and he is brought before a vile crowd who do nothing but spit on and make fun of him. Natalie says they're going to make him shovel coal into the train's engine all the way to Petrograd, where he'll be executed. However, she only makes him do this so he's separated from the passengers. In the train's engine compartment, Natalie gives her necklace back to Sergius and tells him to buy his way out of russia with it. Sergius leaps off the train shortly before it veers off a bridge into a frozen lake. Natalie is dead. A decade later, Sergius is now employed by the very same person he hit during the revolution for being insubordinate. Leo deliberately intends on making Sergius relive his bad memories by getting him to star in a scene where he plays a russian general during world war 1. As the scene begins, a soldier tells him he thinks the war is pointless and that he's tired of fighting, not caring about who wins. Sergius is instructed to hit him (just like how he hit Leo) and he does. Sergius then vividly imagines himself on a real battlefield encircled by hostile forces, and tells those around him to fight for russia. He seemingly suffers a heart attack and dies. Leo, realizing how big of a loss this is, tells his cameraman Sergius was a great man. Like many other silent films, The Last Command manages to showcase the emotions of its characters more effectively than modern movies, in large part because there isn't any talking. You can tell a lot about a person by their behavior and how they interact with other cast members. Sergius is shown to be a hard and mostly brutal person, as he harshly punishes those under him who don't obey orders, and he serves no one but the tsar. However, even someone like him eventually becomes nicer due to his interest in a woman. Natalie is the polar opposite of him politics wise, as the party she stands with wants to see the tsar dead (and in real life, soon killed him) but after seeing how much Sergius' country means to him, she knows she simply has to let him live. It's amazing to me how a story so interesting can be told within the confines of a historical conflict I already take great interest in. Going into this, I thought for sure I was going to be more intrigued by the ww1 setting than the actual plot, but The Last Command has such a moving story that it's just mandatory I rate it one of the most memorable silent movies.
Review of The Last Command
