Piter FM

I was pretty entertained by the film "Piter FM". Granted it was very predictable, and more could have been done to build a connection with the characters but the imagery and cinematography more than made up for that. I felt as though the director just kinda showed and told us about the problems the characters were facing but was unable to build a connection between them and the viewer. This is especially the case with Maksim, he seems rather unemotional throughout the entire film in my opinion. Also I find it difficult to believe that if Masha and Maksim were to finally get together they would last at all, simply because it seems as if Masha is longing for a more fun loving man and what was shown of Maksim was anything but fun loving. The imagery though was amazing. It really made St. Petersburg seem like a paradise. At times I found myself forgetting that they were in St. Petersburg and thinking they were in Paris or a place with similar romantic mystique. All in all it was an entertaining film but definetly not a classic.

The Return

The film "The Return" does a masterful job using cinematic elements to enhance the story to the directors will. One of the major techniques that is used is the use of mainly natural lighting. This gives the film a little more of a gritty and depressing feel to it. After the first twenty minutes or so I could have told you that the film was not a generic son and father fishing trip with a happy ending, based almost solely on the lighting choice of the director. If I had to choose one overwhelming color theme used throughout the film it would have to be grey for this reason. Everything about this film is grey in the sense that even the characters are neither good nor bad, they are just simply characters. The father is a prime example of this. At times he is very hard on his sons, even resorting to hitting them on a few occasions, but it is undeniable that he did care for his kids. In my opinion he was so critical and hard on them in an attempt to toughen them up. It is apparent after the scene where they get mugged that they are not very tough, and their father uses tough love to try to change that. Also if he really was a pilot there is little doubt that he is used to a certain amount of hierarchy, which Ivan rebels against every step of the way. This is what eventually leads to the demise of their father. His death however seems to accomplish his goal, to toughen up his children. Once he is dead they carry out what needs to be done without hesitation with very little complaining.
Their mother on the other hand is a stereotypical motherly figure. She tends to pamper her children a little more than their father but it is not without saying she is not a little tough on them as well. She does not seem to be to thrilled about their father returning to their lives but seems to understand that they need a father figure. She lives with her mother in a rather large house that is apparently on the outskirts of town. Her house is large and made of concrete, with none of the walls painted and little decorations in it. It is a nice house but it is almost a minimalist home, due to the lack of very much inside despite all the space. Many of the buildings shown in this film are quite similar to this is, in the sense that they are large, grey concrete, and almost completely baron inside.

Brother

The film "Brother" is by far my personal favorite of all the films we've viewed in this class. The story follows Danila as me moves to St. Petersburg and successfully dismantles the mafia that his brother works for. He also commits many acts of vigilantism along the way. He seems to not enjoy the many violent acts he commits but views these acts as necessary for the greater good of everyone. Almost all of the friends he makes in St. Petersburg, do not condone his acts of violence and by the end of the movie they disown him for these acts, although many of these act are for the benefit of these friends. The way the film ends up depicting Danila is a loner that always tries to help the downtrodden by the means he knows best. There is no question that he does many violent things but I would not call him a violent man. He does not enjoy these acts and accepts the punishment for them (such as getting shot himself, and his friends disowning him). He is, however, rather adept at killing people. He has many tricks that he uses to be a more effective killer, and it is unclear where he learned tricks like these. The film mentions several times that he faught in the army but I highly doubt that the army would teach people how to make homemade silencers and how to create better bullets.
Danila also has a profound attachment to music in the film. His music always seems to be one of his top priorities. By the end of the movie music ends up saving his life by a bullet being stopped by his walkman. This could be a metaphor that the arts can/will save the Russian community and it's people. Around this time the government was strongly pushing it's arts to the rest of the world to gain respect among other countries. His love of music brings him across a few Americans and some American music which are both portrayed as being just kind of dumb and lacking any real intelligence. Even the Frenchman he meets is shown as a bumbling idiot that all he does is nod and smile, despite the fact that Danila is making fun of him.

Little Vera

The film "Little Vera" is very different from the rest of the movies we've seen so far. First of all this film seems to be much more westernized than the rest of the films up until this point. From the way the characters dress to the way they act, the film screams western stylization. At one point one of the characters is even wearing a "puma" shirt. Even their hair styles are extremely similar to what was common and stylious in America at the time.It is rare to see the rebel youth role to the extremes as these in Russian films as well. In the beginning of the film where the fight breaks out at the dance, it reminded me a little bit of the scene in the film "Warriors" when the meeting of all the gangs gets busted by the cops. Vera's promiscus and rebelious nature is unseen in earlier Russian films. This film also portrays the use of alcohol in a very negative way, which unlike the rest of the movies we've seen so far. In the rest of the films the use of alcohol happens in a celebritory sense, in "Little Vera" they drink as a way to try to escape their problems. This always compounds their problems instead of mending them, it leads to Vera's father stabbing Tolik in a drunken arguement, and Vera overdosing on anti-depressants as well.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

The film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" follows three girls who have just recently moved to Moscow. They each have different aspirations and expectations in the city. The most out going of the three is Lyudmila. She is always very optimistic and at times is best described as a gold digger. Her sole aspiration is to find a well off man and marry him. To achieve this she lies and manipulates men constantly. She discriminates against all suitors based almost solely on their economic status. Eventually she finds a great, well-off man and the get married but the marriage eventually fails. She becomes the only of the three women to end up unmarried by the end of the film. This is most likely due to represent the faults in the ways of living for material possessions. By the end of the movie she does make a remark that implies she longs for true love.
One of the other girls is Tonya. Of the three Tonya is the most sensible one. All she wants is a decent job a good husband and a happy family. She achieves all of these goals in a quick matter. She finds a husband who loves her and treats her and her friends well. By the end of the movie it could be debated that she is the most fulfilled and successful of three, at the very least at a spiritual level.
The final of the three girls is Katya. In the beginning she is devoted almost solely on her studies. Lyudmila persuades her to focus more on men, which ends up leading to her falling for a man named Rudolph. This relationship leads to Katya getting pregnant and Rudolph leaves her. This devastates her and slightly derails her life. Instead of becoming the great chemist that she planned to be at the beginning she becomes a director at the factory she worked at and vowed to someday leave. Even though she is a quite successful single parent her lack of a love life leaves her unfulfilled. Eventually she meets a man named Gosha. Gosha is a good man that for the most part treats Katya and her daughter very well but he is an extremely proud man. He is obsessed with being a well respected man and occasionally blows up at Katya for simply speaking her mind and expressing her will towards him. I personally found it very interesting that Katya referred to him as the perfect man several times after he gets infuriated that Rudolph shows up at their house unannounced in hopes of meeting his long lost daughter. Even though this is no fault of Katya, Gosha leaves her for this. Although he does come back and it is made to be believed that he Katya live out a happy life at the end of the film, it perplexes me how she is so eager to take him back after he treated her so wrong.

Mirror

I woul be lying if I said I completely comprehended the film "Mirror", in fact I didn't understand it at all but that does not take away the artistic merit that this film has. As far as I could tell the film is about a man and his children at different stages of their lives in a jumbled up order. Though they do not say it out right or whether it was his fault, it appears that the man is feeling deeply guilty about burning down a cottage as a child. It also seems that the man seems to have some sort of Oedipus complex, or some other type of complex with his mother that interfiers with the relationship between him and his baby's mother. The only real pattern that I noticed in the film was that almost every time it switched to black and white the people seemed to move faster or be buisier and it almost always seemed to be raining. In the scenes that were color the characters tended to move at a much more leisurely pace. One thing I found interesting was that the scenes in color almost always with a close up of one of the characters and a single tear rolling down their cheek. Of all the scenes the one that seemed the most out of place was at the very beginning of the film with the man who had a stuttering problem, with the exception of that, everything seemed as though it fit together. Overall it was a very interesting movie and i wish i would've understood it more.

Ivan the Terrible

Watching films by Eisenstein in both the silent and sound movies it is apparent that several of his strategies had changed with the technology that went along with it. He seems to shy away from the montage style that made him famous to an extent. There are still many scenes that contain several montage characteristics. One major thing that Eisenstein kept in both of these films is that the heroic characters always seem to be looking off into the distants as a way to symbolize them always looking forward.
Eisenstein does a good job of creating a Socialist Realist plot. The Czar Ivan is working extremely hard to unite all of Russia in order to create a central government. The trecherous Boyars (symbolizing the bourgeois) and the members of the clergy (the church too was an enemy of communist Russia) betray and plot against him several times throughout the film. Also Ivan continously attempts to spread the wealth between the entire population, and frequently helps the peasents in the film. Lastly there are several scenes where either Ivan or his shadow is portrayed as being bigger than most of of the other characters. All of these things demonstrate Stalin's  ideals and is undoubtedly why Stalin and most of Russia loved it.

Burnt by the Sun

The film "Burnt by the Sun" is a fictional film made in the ninety's depicting the darker side of communist Russia. The main character Sergei is a well respected colonel who draws many parallels to the infamous Chapaev. Both are extremely well known and respected generals, with broad shoulders and big thick mustaches. Both men's soldiers show unfaltering loyalty to them, and more importantly soldiers and civilians alike. Sergei is in the countryside enjoying a holiday, when the mysterious Mitya appears to their countryside home. It becomes clear that Mitya and the colonels wife were once lovers but Mitya's true motivation is never exactly clear until close to the end of the movie. Mitya is portrayed as an uncharacteristic skinny man compared to the rest of the men shown in the movie. He is also very familiar with French culture and often speaks it instead of Russian, he even goes as far as giving the characters French nicknames. This eventually becomes a very ironic point because it is him of all characters who is deepest with the Russian government as a member of the secret police. His true motivation is finally revealed towards the end of the movie, that he is there to arrest Sergei. Sergei makes no attempt to run away but rather he simply says goodbye to his family and quietly accepts the punishment for crimes he did not commit, which consequently is death. This film is undoubtedly made for all the families that suffered from the terror created by Stalin and the secret police reigned upon them in the early years of communist Russia.

Circus

The film "Circus" provides an immense level of entertainment as well as a great deal of Socialist Realism. The film is about an American performer named Marion Dixon who ends up in Russia after being chased out of her American home for having an affair with a black man that leads to her having a black child. She finds a home in Russia and falls for a young Russian performer named Ivan Petrovich Martynov, but fears that they will not accept the fact that she has a black child. Her sinister German manager Von Kneishitz uses this information to get what he wants from her. Eventually in an attempt to ruin her he relays this information to a crowd but no one cares.

This film is full of Socialist Realism and one key example of this is the fact that Marion finds her home in Russia. It is presumed that she traveled through a great deal of countries from America to Russia but it is Russia where she finally settles. Another example of this is when the crowd of people don't care that she has a black child they all accept him just the same, as well as claiming that they welcome all types of people. Both of these are extremely unlikely due to the sorry shape the country was in, and the fact that Russia was known for discriminating against all sorts of racial and ethnic groups. This film provided a large dose of both propaganda and entertainment, which is most likely the reason it was such a success.

Chapaev

Chapaev was arguably the first real blockbuster in Russian history, for good reason. It's plot structure had many parallels to the modern blockbuster "300". For examples both are centered around their great general who continuously leads his men to victory despite being out manned and out gunned. Both of these hero generals appeal to their soldiers by being master motivators and by being very accessible to the masses. Similarly both of these movies end with the protagonist making a heroic last stand and eventually being killed in this effort, but as they die reinforcements approach to destroy the enemy. Both even have a preferred soldier that they entrust to go send word for reinforcements.
Despite these similarities "Chapaev" is an entirely separate film. It provides a propaganda filled but enjoyable nonetheless plot, with characters that are easy to root for. The lead character Chapaev is a relentlessly fierce general who deeply cares for the well being of his troops. His main fault, that he rather unintelligent, makes him a more likable person because it humanizes him. People viewing to the film can most likely identify with him in this situation, and his desire for greater knowledge makes him more than a mumbling loser. He preaches the morals that Russia wants to impose on the entire country which makes it a great propaganda film. Examples of such morals is his undying loyalty and respect to his men and his country and his unwillingness to falter to the enemy White Army. It is the combination of the likable characters alongside the action that repeatedly draws the viewer back to this film.

Man with the Movie Camera

Vertov's extremely avant-guard style is abundantly clear through his decision to exclude not only characters for the most part but any true sort of plot in the film "Man with the Movie Camera". It starts off portraying a movie theater preparing before a show. It then moves to showing several people, both children and adults, that live on the streets sleeping/waking up. This section of the film personally reminded me of the muckrakers in the early twentieth century, except despite being in a state of despair the people in the film, almost seemed happy. After that the film repeatedly jumps in between three main groups of images, machinery, work and life outside of work. The machinery section is quite possibly the most straight forward of any the groups, it simply showed machines. Whether they be for work, transportation or recreation there were images of all sorts of technology. The next group of images was the work life group. In this section people were diligently working at their craft almost always smiling and acting happy. Vertov undoubtedly did this on purpose as a form of propaganda trying to convey the message that works is in fact fun and that people are happy performing repetitive tasks. The last section is definitely the most intriguing of the three. The section that is life outside of work ranges in everything from relaxing on the beach to the birth of a baby and a funeral. This film undoubtedly is viewed as being very strange at best by the mass majority but is nonetheless a valiant effort to revolutionize the way that film up until that point had been created. Vertov masterfully uses the montage technique to establish motifs which is essential to the cohesiveness and entertaining aspects of the film. He frequently cuts back to similar images at different tempos to illustrate the progression as the day goes on. All-in-all a very interesting film.

Battleship Potemkin

The film "Battleship Potemkin" is a very intersting one, in a large part due to its overwhelming propagandistic qualities. Being from a culture where the propaganda is no where near as blatant many of the elements pretained within the film seem very alien. A chief example is the part where they throw the religous figure, that vaguely resembles the western image of what God would look like, down a flight of stairs. The communist party in Soviet Russia was extremely against the entire concept of religion, and in this film they demonized this religous figure in an attempt to turn the viewers against it. The way they demonized him was by having him egg on the admiral to have the disobedient soldiers shot. When the mutiny commences, the religious figure holds a cross in the face of the rebellion sailors to fear God. They then end up throwing him down a flight of stairs to subdue him. It is extremely difficult to believe that something remotely similar to this would be accepted in the slightest bit in western society.
Another aspect I found interesting was that the protagonists are never seen killing anyone. During the mutiny the sailors are seen punching and throwing the officers overboard, whereas the officers and later the soldiers are frequently seen shooting people and it shows the aftermath and the people slowly dying. This contrast is most likely an attempt to make the working class of both the town and the sailors as more civilized than the bourgeois they are fighting against. The extent of violence seen by the protagonists is when they blow up the headquarters of the leader of the soldiers, but even this does not compare to the violence committed by the bourgeois because in this act it is in conclusive if any of the soldiers or their leader had been hurt. The explosions consist of nothing but a gate and a few statues being blown up.

Child in the Big City

The film "Child in the Big City" is a sad tale where a young rich man falls in love with a poor seamstress. They end up in a relationship and he spares no expense on her, but when he becomes broke she leaves him for another man who is much wealthier than him. The film concludes with him begging her to at least talk to him but she refuses, so he shoots himself on the stairs of her new apartment. When she sees his body she pauses for a second but then steps over it so she can go to another party. Despite the limitations caused by this being a silent film I personally believe it was pretty well done. A major problem the film had was since there was no sound it was much more difficult for the actors to develop the plot. Also since there was not any talking the story at times could become a little confusing and hard to follow, to compensate for that the actors had to overact, which at times can seem counter productive by confusing the audience even more as of why the dramatic change in emotion. Conversely this can be twisted into a positive for the more imaginative viewer because they can develop the plot however they see fit within the guidelines the film provides. All-in-all I would say I would say I was pleasantly suprised by the quality of the first silent film I've ever seen.

Irony of Fate

My intial impressions of the film "Irony of Fate", is that it is understandable why it is so notorious in Russia. Although I am uncertain, it would seem like the plot is a unique one. The humor used in it for the most part in universal to all parts of the world. One thing I did find interesting was the use of music in the film. Many American and European movie do not incorporate characters in the film singing, let alone as much as "Irony of Fate". Halfway through the film they have incorporated two song breaks in the film, and that's not including the drunken singing that Zhenya and his friends do.
After the conclusion of the film it seems that even comedy films in Russia carry a more somber tone. Although the film had many funny and light-hearted moments, compared American comedies it was much more serious. Especially the songs and poems, they are undeniably somber especially for a comedy movie. All in all it was a very good movie, just a very different style to the comedy format that Americans are used to.