Dovzhenko's grim telling of a Bolshevik uprising against against a bourgeois Ukranian nationalist movement, resulting in a bloody munitions factory strike. The camerawork and editing are phenomenal, and the film packs a lot of punch. However, much of it is confusing and I needed the audio commentary to clear up a lot of the context (the commentator also notes that Dovzhenko often preferred cryptic narrative styles). I liked it quite a bit more than Earth, though.

963

Dovzhenko's film about munition workers last stand against an invading Russian army at the end of WW1 is awash in beautiful images. One interesting technique was combining stillness with motion in the frame --having a character progress through a shot in which all of the other actors remain frozen, as if in a painting, or ending a shot full of motion with a frozen pose.

#998

It's confusing without knowledge of the cultural context, but at the same time, bypassing that exposition makes it all the more powerful when the context is understood.

# 968

938