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Okraina (1933)
Okraina
"The Outskirts (Okraina)" follows several stories as villagers in a far-distant Russian town are faced with war, a strike, a prisoner-of-war camp, and the effects and aftershocks these all bring. The town the film begins in is struggling with the shocks and effects of war, and the film follows those effects in multiple story lines. The ways that the war is used vary, from a factory strike brought on by the harshness of the times, to a young woman and her budding relationship with a German prisoner of war, to the shoe factory strike, to the soldiers at the front lines. As with many other Soviet films, there are many semi-leading and leading characters, and these film is constantly shifting between groups of characters and stories we are following. There are also tertiary characters being effected by the war as well.
The transition from the more comedic parts to the horrors of war are quick, and often very abrupt. The clumsiness of the story comes from the odd pacing, with too-long bouts of time spent in the various places where the film takes place, making it difficult to transition back to the other story lines easily. The film is clearly struggling to fit the appropriate criteria laid forth by the Soviet Union, to tell the right story with the appropriate characters and the right messages. The stories we follow are compelling in and of themselves but the choppy pacing and the lack of technical finesse detract from the overall quality of this complex, multi-layered war film.
Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov (1924)
Mr. West
Lev Kuleshov's 'The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West' sets up a fairly simple premise of a wealthy American setting out to visit Russia during the Bolshevik period, and turns this premise into an over the top comedy of hijinks, greed, and the true meaning of Bolshevik Russia. Mr. West is introduced to Russia carrying a American flag and a briefcase, which he promptly loses to a thief. His companion, Jeddy, is a literal cowboy, with fur lined chaps and a big ten gallon hat. The cowboy causes a great deal of destruction as he accidentally leads the police on a high speed chase of motorbikes and sleds, one of which he stands atop. He lassos people and fires his gun off seemingly at random, which lands him in jail. Meanwhile, Mr. West has fallen into the trap of greedy Russians seeking to exploit him for his American dollars. The villainous con artists capitalize on Mr. West's general lack of knowledge and the fact the his ideas of Russia come from American magazines that portray Russians as savages to garner Mr. West's sympathies.
Kuleshov uses physical comedy and nearly pantomime-levels of acting to tell the story of the ridiculous American with American flag socks and his cowboy companion as they embark on their journey to Bolshevik Russia. Through a series of consistently high-key scenes, such as a chase scene, multiple elaborate fight scenes, and eventually a mock trial scene, Kuleshov's use of quick cuts and thorough coverage of each scene allows for each to feel equally tense and high- stakes. The 'trial' scene is filled with techniques to raise the stakes, from the editing, which cuts from each character to images within the room that enforce the tenseness of the scene, to the high-key lighting that contrasts light and dark sharply, to layering film strip to create a nightmare-like effect, all to put us into the shoes of the terrified Mr. West.
Overall, the film's comedy and use of physicality to express humor makes Kuleshov's Mr. West consistently entertaining thought the antics and the eventual happy ending for both Bolshevik Russia and Mr. West. The finale of the film is a testament to the overwhelming importance of politics in film for Russian cinema, as the capitalist American is immediately sold on the show of Bolshevik greatness in the conclusion of the film.
Po zakonu (1926)
By the Law and Kuleshov's Montage
Lev Kuleshov's 'By The Law,' based on Jack London's The Unexpected follows a group of gold prospectors as greed, pride, and the cruelty of nature tear the group apart. There are, at first, five members of the party. Three are made out to be shareholders, financiers of the trip, one is the wife of the biggest financier, and the fifth member becomes their catchall, a minion-like bitter Irishman named Dennin. All the while in the time leading up to the inciting incident of the film, the rest of the prospectors treat Dennin with derision and laughter, and he becomes more and more sour towards them until the incident that sets the story in motion. Dennin kills two of the members of the party before being subdued in a violent fight with the last living people, the husband and wife. They take him into their custody, keeping a watchful eye on him, until the cruel winter dies down and they can bring him in for justice. The rest of the film shows the sort of Stockholm Syndrome that sets in with the three in the cabin, all of them growing more crazed but also seemingly more trusting and more sympathetic towards Dennin, until they cast their final judgment on him.
Kuleshov's distinct style of editing is used throughout the film to highlight and intensify scenes, especially in the fight scene after Dennin kills the two men, and in the second to last scene, when they elect to hang Dennin in accordance with the Queen's law. In the fight scene, he cuts between wider shots showing the full action and extreme close ups on the faces, each crazed and wild eyed as they fight. In addition to these shots, it also cuts frequently to the polar opposite of the movement-heavy, frantic fighting to the completely still, grotesquely placed corpses of the dead men as a way to accentuate the tenseness of the scene. In the hanging scene, Kuleshov employs the same general montage structure; wide shots, extreme close ups, and shots of the inanimate thing that is causing the rising tension (corpses, a noose). Kuleshov also, through the whole film, cuts to a portrait of the Queen that hangs in their cabin, to constantly remind the characters and the audience of the law and the stakes. The use of this type of montage allows and forces the audience to feel the growing tension that the characters are feeling, through visuals, not through intertitles telling the audience how to feel.
Kuleshov tells a story of extreme tension and despair, through montage more than dialogue and exposition. The way he cuts the scenes together, as previously mentioned, allows the audience to completely understand the stakes and the tension through visuals alone. 'By The Law' seems to be a very good example of how Kuleshov viewed the benefits of using montage, and each scene and the rising tension each scene creates, displays that use of montage.
Jim Shvante (marili svanets) (1930)
Salt for Svanetia
Opening on text exposition and a map to pin point the location of the documentary, 'Salt for Svanetia' seeks to show the cold, desolate, isolated world of the villagers of the remote mountain village of Svanetia. The director goes to great lengths to showcase this village and its villagers as lonely and isolated in the first shots of the film. The film also carries a strong communist message, describing the village's need once for guard towers to protect against the cruel monarchy, and the good that the new communist government is doing for these villagers. The film rests much of its documentary stylization on the ideas described by the members of 'KinoEye,' with pseudo naturalistic shots that seems to show impossible scenes, such as directly down the barrel of a gun mid-conflict, and the entire saga of men going up a mountain and being caught in an avalanche. These scenes seem to use staging and much pre planning to create the necessary effect for the thesis of the film, which seems to be that this village's suffering is due to remoteness, a struggle that roads built by the new government will solve. 'Salt for Svanetia' is nothing like current documentaries, and thusly the story must follow a different structure and pattern. The theme is conveyed through both inter title cards and the kinetic shots and editing used to show urgency and danger within the film. Using montage techniques, unrelated shots are frequently put together to add to the story and support the thesis. The use of montage frequently takes the audience through the unfamiliar rituals and habits of the town, such as sheep shearing, hat making, and funeral rites. The way it is formatted and cut together makes the film feel both educational as well as subjectively pointed, especially with the message of how this village's struggle for salt to survive can be helped. Overall, it is beautifully filmed and the choice of shots helps to create and convey an idea of a desperate, isolated peoples that might only be saved by a new government.
Sumerki zhenskoy dushi (1913)
Twilight of a Woman's Soul
'Twilight of a Woman's Soul' is very much a product of its time, and as such, allows the audience a glimpse of many different things surrounding the time period, in both cinema and society. Cinematically, it is much like its contemporaries. The cinematography is simple; every scene is designed very carefully so that a single shot can be used for an entire scene. That being said, each shot is also beautifully rendered, and the production design often tells a lot about the place and the character. For instance, when the lead character, Vera, is introduced as a lonely woman, she is shown as a very small figure in a large room, and the design of the shot isolates her in an empty space to display her loneliness.
The film relies on a format similar to one that could be found at an opera, play, or ballet to tell the story, perhaps because feature-length films were in the very early stages of existence. To introduce each main character, title cards and non-diegetic shots of the appropriate character are used, much like a program for a play would. Each scene, also like a play, is titled with a card to tell the viewer the location.
The social aspect of the film is perhaps the most interesting of all. It is self-loathing in a way, as the woman shamed becomes an actress, as if that is the only profession she would be able to take up after her assault and subsequent, presumably annulled marriage.
The way class is treated in the film is also very interesting. The lead characters are all very wealthy and often shown as such, draped in furs and surrounded by bouquets of flowers. The poor characters in the film are all shown to be despicable people; the first people they charitably visit hide a table full of food that they have been stuffing their faces with before the wealthy women arrive to give them more food. The second person they visit is shown to be an alcoholic and he eventually assaults Vera, leading to the downward spiral of her life. The film seems to use the difference in class as a plot device, but the intention behind the derision towards the lower class, and the reception of such treatment of perhaps part of the viewing audience, is worth considering when viewing this film.