A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that I had never heard of Artavazd Peleshian before but, right away, after watching only this short, he became already one of my favorite Soviet directors. Indeed, from all the Soviet movies I have seen so far, it was probably one of the most fascinating. By now, I have seen my share of movies in this genre and, even though they are always intriguing mostly because they were so different than what was made in the West, the propaganda involved was always rather tiresome though. Well, here, there was none of that, or then it was really subtle which was really appreciated. Furthermore, I always had a weak spot for documentaries without narration or commentaries as, in my opinion, it makes the images so much more evocative this way. However, I was not sure if I should call this movie a ‘documentary’, I guess it was more some kind of visual poem. Indeed, there was something quite mesmerizing about these images which were repeated again and again, very often in slow motion. To use Vivaldi's Four Seasons as a soundtrack might seem easy but it was also a master move which made the whole thing even more mesmerizing. The fact that there was no context, no explanation whatsoever, made me wonder what the hell these guys were doing sometimes but I doubt that explaining any of this would have made it more interesting. What was also striking to me was how you saw only men and animals for a while giving the feeling that the action could have taken place 100 years before and, suddenly, cars were added to the mix reminding me that it was actually contemporary. Anyway, I might have to rewatch it at some point as I keep thinking about it but I really loved the damned thing, that’s for sure. 

7/10