A good movie

Since this movie has a strong reputation like pretty much all the movies directed by Sergei Eisenstein, it is indeed included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list among other things, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, it’s the 3^rd movie I watched directed by Sergei Eisenstein and it was probably the most difficult one I have seen so far. While watching this movie, I tried to remember what I did learn at school about the 1917 October Revolution but it was more than 20 years ago and this movie certainly didn’t give any background information. Eventually, the end-result was some kind of endless feverish dream dealing with the uprising that took place at the time in Russia. Seriously, the damned thing was quite relentless and I don’t think they took a minute to breath and provide the viewers with the opportunity to absorb what they just watched. By now, I got pretty much used to the fact such Soviet propaganda movies actually never focused on the characters individually but, still, it was interesting that Lenin was mentioned only a couple of times (Vasili Nikandrov was a stunning look-a-like though). For Trotsky, the situation was even worse as, even though he did show up a couple of times, his name was never mentioned and, in fact, Eisenstein had to remove most of the footage dealing with him which shows how things can change in only 10 years. Eventually, what impressed me the most with this movie was the frenetic editing. Eisenstein’s idea was to edit together some shots of various things which apparently had nothing to do with each other to create an intellectual comparisons between them which was quite intriguing. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t an easy watch, it was still really interesting and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you’re interested in this genre.