(Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin 1928)
I don't think they actually had ratings at this point in time, but I'm going to give it a PG. Just warning you now, this entire post is a spoiler. I would hate to spoil the plot of a nearly ninety year old movie for anyone. I can't honestly say that I'm a huge fan of USSR era propaganda films. I realize that considering the times and their lack of resources what they managed to do was quite good and they innovated new film techniques, but they're just so boring. Their central idea is pretty much always the same. If you've seen one you've seen them all (just think underdog takes on capitalism), and I have now seen two so. The protagonist of this film is a simple Mongolian herdsman, who I think has sick father. It's a little hard to tell, either way there's a sick old man involved. This old man produces and amazing (I assume its amazing because of the way the characters react, I don't actually know that much about fur trade) fox pelt and tells him not to accept less than five hundred silvers for it. The herdsman heads off to sell his wares and thus begins the epic tale of people trying to cheat him out of his fur (darn capitalists, can't trust a one of 'em). Eventually he meets a British trader who once and for all cheats him out of his fur, and they get into a fight. The herdsman has to flee because the British guy gets injured and stats yelling at everyone to avenge the white man's blood. Yeah, this film is not really subtle. So the herdsman ends up joining the "partisans" who I think are Russian? The Russians have to come in at some point in this film right? Anyway about .05 seconds after joining the herdsman gets captured by the British. He is sent to be executed and is shot twice before falling off a cliff. While this dramatic as all get out execution is going on the British commanders figure out the herdsman is a direct heir of the great Genghis Khan. Uh oh, too late they rush out to stop the execution, but manage to find him alive. The herdsman is nursed back to health and they make him into a puppet ruler. At some point the British fur trader shows back up, and surprise!!! so does the herdsman's pelt. The nasty fur trader is giving it as a gift his mistress, who for some reason is there. The herdsman goes into a blind rage and attacks the fur trader who starts screaming again about avenging the white man's blood. Except this time everyone is like "bruh, get wrecked, that guy is a prince" (Actual quote). Shortly after this the herdsman summons a Mongol hoard outta nowhere and EVERYONE gets wrecked. The End I made that summary very detailed and in depth so you could begin to realize what a ride this film is for yourself. So now imagine those events, with a bunch of interruptions by random symbolic images and at least 20 minutes of nothing happening between any significant events. This film is over two hours long but the actual plot parts could be condensed into fifteen. Russians. One scene really stuck out to me, so basically they want to show how capitalism is bad and capitalist people are overindulgent and wicked. To do this they decide to spend seven minutes flashing around clips of the British commander and his wife getting ready all while playing music reminiscent of the sure-skree-skree noise in the Psycho shower scene. Very awkward to watch.
1 Comment
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Aubrey KirchhoffI'm just screaming into the void and somehow getting graded on it. Archives
April 2018
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