Jeanskynebu
the audience applauded
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Jackson Booth-Millard
I found this silent Soviet Union film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, from directors Sergei M. Eisenstein (Strike, Battleship Potemkin; Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II) and Grigori Aleksandrov, I was hoping it would be a worthy entry. Basically the events of 1917, in Petrograd, Russia are re-enacted in this documentary style film, from the end of the monarchy in February to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns in April, counter-revolutionaries spontaneously revolt and the order of Lenin's arrest occurs in July, by late October the Bolsheviks prepare to strike, these are the ten days that will shake the world. While the Mensheviks waver their opinions, the palace is infiltrated by an advance guard, it is the lead of Anatov-Oveyenko to attack and sign the proclamation that dissolves the provisional government. Starring Vasili Nikandrov as Lenin, Nikolay Popov as Kerenskiy as Boris Livanov as Minister Terestsenko. This film served as a tenth anniversary celebration of the overthrown provisional government and impersonal tribute, it is satirical and overtly political, I found it a bit hard to follow on occasion, and it does not have the same grip as Battleship Potemkin, but with a montage of realistic and dramatic material it has bits that gained my attention, a watchable silent historical epic. Good!
kluseba
October is another technically perfect masterpiece of Sergei Eistenstein that is though a little bit more radical and propaganda orientated than his previous works as the censorship and state control in Soviet Union heavily increased during that period. Note that Eisenstein would later be censored for other movies and that there would be way more radical propaganda movies than this one which can still be categorized as part of the early Soviet Union's revolutionary cinema. If you collect some background information and know about the historical context, you can watch this movie without problems as you won't get brainwashed by it in the end. Nevertheless, this is not an entertainment movie as there are lot of scenes and many different characters and events that need your full attention. The topic of revolution and violent rebellion hasn't changed though and is once again a main topic of one of Eisenstein's movies.From the artistic point of view, Eisenstein has improved his philosophy of cinema and introduces the intellectual montage to one of his full length features. You have a sequence of many short and fast cuts where you can seen images of religious symbols and after this or in alternation with this the statue of a tsar. This means that Eisenstein compares the numerous gods of different cultures in a profoundly atheist Soviet Union to the megalomania of the repressive tsars in a period of tyranny. The movie does the same thing when it compares the wasteful shine of tsarist dishes to a dumb and indoctrinated army in the next moment. Another good example is the fact that a tsarist officer is compared to Napoleon.Visually, there are many impressive images and scenes in this movie even if is not a intense as Battleship Potemkin was. The scene where a helpless horse falls down a bridge is pretty emotional for example.The movie is longer than Battleship Potemkin but very detailed and includes many historical details, crowds scenes and diversified characters. That's why the movie doesn't get too boring and is still enjoyable to watch nowadays.In the end, this movie is not as essential as Battleship Potemkin was but if you liked the style of Eisenstein's first international success, you can't go wrong with this one and learn a lot about Russian history, culture and ideology.
chuck-526
This review is of the 103 minute version of "October" with the Shostakovich music on a DVD obtained from Netflix in 2010. (This is seemingly the only version easily available in the U.S. A different version that's fairly similar (but still not identical) to the original "Moscow" version is supposedly available in some places in Europe.) After watching just a few minutes, I was powerfully reminded of two other films: Like "Triumph of the Will" by Leni Riefenstahl it makes great use of black and white, contains lots of military order and crowd scenes, was assisted and paid for by a government, is accompanied by stirring music, is about people who are dead and no longer anywhere near as relevant as they once were, is by a director very sympathetic to the cause of the political paymasters, and is generally regarded as a "propaganda" film. It definitely has artistic merit, with lots of then-new cutting techniques that gave the camera itself an eloquent and unmistakable editorial voice and that (in more subdued form) have become part of the mainstream. But the content is so obviously propaganda --all too often just plain silly-- that only the arresting images kept me from laughing out loud every few minutes.I don't fully understand why "Triumph of the Will" is denigrated even now (and wasn't originally picked up by any U.S. distributor), while "October" (even though never all that popular) is sometimes regarded as a "masterpiece". (Note though that decades ago "October" was treated more harshly in the West; originally it was banned in the U.K and somewhat censored in the U.S.) Perhaps the legacy difference is because the ideological attractions of "Triumph of the Will" can sometimes hide below the level of perception, while those of "October" are so blatant and silly they almost demand to be ignored.Like "Revue" (Soviet archival footage, mostly from the Kruschev era) edited by Sergei Loznitsa it once again makes great use of black and white, uses excellent cinematography throughout, has a lot of closeups of faces, shows people from a very wide range of genetic backgrounds, is often noticeably narrowly selective in its material, and fairly often communicates to us modern viewers very different ideas than what was obviously "intended".Like any silent film that wants to convey a moderately complex story yet not be interrupted by too many inter-titles, "Ocbober" says a lot through visuals and visual symbols that key into background knowledge the viewer already has. Unfortunately people in the U.S. almost a century later often don't have that necessary background knowledge (so they typically don't even understand how long a period of time the film covers, or that the film easily divides into five relatively independent "acts"). Something like a very detailed guide document or a commentary track by a historian (or maybe even copious additional subtitles) is needed. Without something more, for most of today's U.S. citizens the film is largely incomprehensible.(This Balkanized Region 1 version -which was long ago cut and even censored in now-forgotten ways- doesn't help either. But the bottom line is that seeing a better version would _not_ improve the experience of "October" all that much. I'm afraid even the original "Moscow" version would be largely incomprehensible to today's U.S. rank and file.) This presentation of this film also suffers from the typical problem with very old films: the wrong speed. The film was obviously shot at a lower frame rate (maybe as low as 16 fps). But as is typical, it's apparently been transferred to modern equipment using the same 2:3 pull-down used for 24 fps material to NTSC (rather than a more appropriate pull-down pattern that would display the material at the approximately correct speed). So as is typical, all actions seem hurried and jerky, throwing a pall of "unreality" over everything.This film feels like a compendium of Soviet "founding myths". It must have been very convenient having so much material in one spot and in such an accessible format. It's too bad the analogous U.S. film was "lost" (you know the "lost" film I'm referring to, right? the one where Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson catch George Washington falling out of a cherry tree, they all go off to drink non-tea, while doing so they draft the constitution on a napkin, and then they use pea-shooters to secretly harass some nearby Redcoats:-) For film history buffs and film technique geeks this is a must-see. Film theory doyens will find this film to be an excellent illustration of many of Eisenstein's own stated formalisms. And serious students of history will enjoy minutely comparing these "stories" against the "real" record, especially to gain insight into what was most important to those in power ten years later. But the rest of us will just have an awfully hard time getting into this film.
mcnimitz04
The film, "Oktyabr" was a Russian propaganda film that was released on January 20, 1928. The film was directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei M. Eisenstein. The movie portrays the Russian revolution that occurred during World War I. It follows the citizens as they attempt to overthrow the ruling class and the government of Russia in 1918. The silent film was released to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the revolution. In my opinion, the film was more of a documentary than a story being told and it could have been better if the film had followed a few main characters instead of focusing on the population in general. However, the style of the film is excellent. The directors used many innovative filming techniques such as montages that helped the film explain events without spending a great amount of time on one event. The acting in this film is also very good. The actor that portrayed Lenin in the film portrayed his character in a very historically accurate manner. In this movie, the directors used the real places where the events of the revolution took place. The winter palace was used for the final scene of the movie and that is the exact place where the revolution ended just ten years earlier. Since the film was made only ten years after the real revolution, it allowed the writers and directors to get input from many people who were a part of the revolution. Overall this was an excellent Russian propaganda film that portrayed the Russian revolution. The film was historically accurate because it was made only ten years after the real revolution took place. The directors do an amazing job with their filming techniques by using innovative filming techniques such as a montage.
