Kino-Eye
Director: Dziga Vertov
Year Released: 1924
Rating: 2.0
Ecstatic celebration of Communist Russia, complete with women drinking vodka, happy workers and children with beaming faces. Vertov's skill as a filmmaker is unquestionable, but this is a little too reminiscent of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (which was made much later): a celebration of a shady political ideology. Propaganda is fine if it's buried under the surface (like it was with Man With a Movie Camera), but this is all propaganda, with even the children being brainwashed at an early age to love and worship the State and its Messiah (Lenin). It's an important part of early Russian cinema, but close examination might make you a bit queasy.
