Arsenal

I've mentioned quite a few times before how I listen to various international broadcaster podcasts. Recently, Radio Prage ran a report on how a cinema in Prague would be airing a series of Ukrainian films as part of solidarity with Ukraine. The report mentioned Aleksandr Dovzhenko's Arsenal, a silent film from 1929. I had heard of and seen Dovzenko's Earth, but to be honest had never heard of Arsenal. So I searched it out on YouTube, and sure enoug there were multiple copies, many with intertitles translated into English. (Even though I can read Russian intertitles for the most part, some of the cards were crowded enough that it was nice to have the English translations along with the Russian.) So I sat down to watch the movie.

Thankfully, having listened to the Radio Prague piece I mentioned above, I knew a bit about the plot, which was nice because the plot would be a bit difficult to follow if you don't know that bit of history from the Russian Empire and Soviet Russia. The first intertitle informs us that there was a war on, and from the dates and the presence of a German officer, it seems like the opening is September 1917, just before Russia admitted defeat to Germany in World War I. The war had mostly not been going well for Tsarist Russia, which eventually led to the February Revolution deposing the Tsar. That, in turn, led the non-Russian provinces to try to assert their independence, including Ukraine, which formed the Ukrainian People's Republic. That led to both a sort of civil war between Ukrainian Bolsheviks supported by their Soviet Russian counterparts (the Reds), and the nominal government of the Tsentralna Rada (the Whites).

Timosh (Semyon Svashenko) is a Ukrainian worker who had fought against Germany befor the end of that war. When the Ukrainian People's Republic is formed, Semyon is part of the workers' collective, and more or less supports the Bolsheviks, since the movie was made well after the war and there's no way Stalin's Russia would have allowed the anti-Bolsheviks to be the good guys here. The war continues in various parts of the country, until in January 1918 the Kiev Arsenal (hence the title) rose up on the side of the Bolsheviks. Timosh seems to be pretty much everywhere, which makes him a wanted man by the White.

Arsenal is visually very interesting, thanks to Dovzhenko's skill at editing and intercutting along with his use of odd camera angles. That alone makes the movie definitely worth a watch. As a narrative, however, it may be a bit difficult to follow espeically if you don't know the history. There's also some decided propaganda, although it's nowhere near as heavy handed as in Dovzhenko's later Earth, which the Soviets wanted as a paean to collective agriculture. The propaganda in Arsenal is closer to the level that you'd get in Hollywood movies about World War II released in the decades after the war: definitely taking one side, but the propaganda isn't for the most part the point of the movie.

So if you want something different from standard Hollywood fare, definitely look up Aleksandr Dovzhenko's Arsenal and give it a try.