Man with a Movie Camera

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a silent, experimental, plotless Soviet documentary made in the 20s, but it turns out what I should have expected was a really awesome film. I think if it had gone on much longer than it did, I may have started to get bored, but as it was, I really enjoyed it. There is not particular narrative to the film, just short sections showing the daily work, life, and play of people in the Soviet Union. What makes it interesting beyond that is how it plays with the medium of film. There are a number of shots of a cameraman lugging a large, 1920s camera to the oddest locations - up a chimney, down a mine, under a train. There is also a sort of framing device of a crowd watching the film in the cinema - the film shows the set up of the cinema at the beginning, and the arrival of the audience, and at the end shows them watching the film. In the middle of the film, we see it being edited together by a young woman, interspersed with shots of other people doing their work, for example in clothing factories.

The editing of the film also seems very modern, such as very fast cuts, and occasional stop-motion animation. The soundtrack I watched with (Alloy Orchestra) was very evocative, though I wonder what difference another would make. I intend to listen to the In The Nursery version, which my DVD copy has.