Film Review
It was his 1926 film
Mother
that earned the filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin a commission from the
Soviet Union's October Revolution Jubilee Committee to make a film
celebrating the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Originally, Pudovkin intended to make an epic film that spanned two
centuries of Russian history. This undertaking was too much for
his screenwriter, Nathan Zarkhi, and so the film's scope was reduced to
the few years that led up to the 1917 revolution. The
resulting film,
The End of St.
Petersburg, forms the middle section of Pudovkin's acclaimed
revolutionary trilogy, which would be completed with his masterpiece
Storm Over Asia (1928).
It is interesting to compare this film with
October
(1928), which was the contribution of Pudovkin's contemporary Sergei M.
Eisenstein to the 1927 jubilee celebrations. Both films rely
heavily on the recently developed principles of montage which
Eisenstein had developed, although the two directors use these in
subtly different ways. Whereas Eisenstein deals with abstract
notions, such as the heroism of the Soviet people and the innate
justice of Communism, Pudovkin focuses on individuals, and shows how
their lives are affected by the revolutionary cause. Crudely
speaking, Eisenstein employs crowds whereas Pudovkin uses individual
characters, but with the same objective in mind: to glorify the Soviet
principle whilst portraying capitalism as an evil that must be resisted.
Whatever your politics, it is hard not to be blown away by the sheer
visual power of this film. Pudovkin captures the hardship and
sense of injustice felt by the ordinary Russian worker with an
extraordinary, almost visceral, intensity. In contrast to
Eisenstein, who uses broadly intellectual reasoning to condemn
capitalist imperialism, Pudovkin employs a more emotional
approach. Eisenstein's
October
is a cold propaganda piece in comparison with the stark humanity
of Pudovkin's film, which shows us not how the revolution happened, but
why it had to happen, to
relieve the unbearable suffering of millions of ordinary men and women.
Pudovkin's use of montage is every bit as effective as Eisenstein's and
is best illustrated in the wartime middle section of the film.
Here, harrowing images of WWI battlefields are inter-cut with scenes
in a busy stock-exchange, the frantic behaviour of greedy traders
mirroring the desperate fight for survival of the soldiers. As
the young warriors fall, one by one, into a muddy grave, the share
prices chalked up on the walls of the exchange are seen to rise
inexorably, as though the loss of each life were helping to inflate the
capitalist balloon.
Pudovkin uses this kind of overt cinematic manipulation much less than
Eisenstein, and patently doesn't need do. The low-key sequence at the end of
the film, where a poor woman shares her last few potatoes with wounded
soliders, is just as effective at conveying the film's central
message, which is the moral superiority of communism over
capitalism. The power of this film lies not in its fancy
use of montage but in the ease with which Pudovkin evokes the raw
anger and suffering of the individual. The visual artistry of this
film is surpassed only by its humanity.
© James Travers 2010
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Film Synopsis
A village lad leaves his impoverished home and heads for St Petersburg, hoping to
find work in the city. He seeks out another man from his village
but is given a cold reception. The man and his wife have barely
enough to feed themselves and their children, thanks to the meagre wage
the man is paid by Lebedev, the owner of the factory where he
works. Lebedev, by contrast, is a capitalist prince who is
rolling in wealth. When his factory wins a government contract,
he tells his workers that they must work a longer day, words which
bring about an immediate strike. Lebedev has no intention of
being blackmailed by his workforce, so he hires unemployed peasants to
replace the strikers. The lad from the village betrays his
compatriot, a communist activist, to the factory manager, who arranges
for him and the other strike leaders to be arrested by the
police. When he realises what he has done, the lad tries to atone
for his actions, but merely gets himself thrown into prison.
After Russia has declared war on Germany, the lad is volunteered into
the Russian army, and experiences firsthand the horrors of trench
warfare. As Russian men fight and die on the mud-soaked
battlefields, Lebedev's shares skyrocket. The factory
owner's belief that the war will prevent a revolution proves to be
ill-founded. The appalling experience of war merely fuels the
revolutionary cause amongst the working classes. The troops
who are brought back to support the coalition government lend their
support to the revolting masses. And so the revolution
begins! The destruction of the Tsar's Winter Palace will mark the
end of St Petersburg and the birth of a new city, Leningrad...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.