Kinoglaz

Back in the day, Communists had a lot of trouble with their own people. They did alright in the cities, but in the country, where they wanted to have collectives, they met great opposition. So we have this piece of propaganda to convince the people that collectivism is the best way. The Communists eventually crushed this opposition by murdering thousands, but that, is omitted from this film.

This film is better than the average propaganda film. It makes use of some of the innovative techniques that were developed in American comedies to add interest to the film. Obviously shot on a low budget, it does not have the same production values that were current with American comedies of the same era. Many have praised the film for its "innovation", however, a brief survey of the American comedy films shows that this is not true.

In this age of political correctness, it is fashionable to say that no matter how good a film may be artistically, if it is ethically flawed, then it should be shunned. This film added to and promoted an effort that murdered Millions, and set up a system of communes that didn't work even brought starvation to many. So if you decry films like "The Birth of a Nation" with its heroes, the Klu-Klux-Klan, or "The Triumph of the Will" that showed a Nazi rally as glorious and beautiful, then this is one you should also decry.

It should be noted that the Lenin and Stalin were responsible for murdering millions of their own people. They are at the top of the brutal dictators of all time - no one, not even Hiter comes close. We are talking over 60 Million lives and that is only what can be verified. Vertov is their promoter. I feel he should be held to the same standard as the people who promoted and propagandized for Hitler.

The brutal reality behind this happy little film belies its innocence. It was a tool to promote a vicious, murderous regime, and that is historical fact.

This is an interesting and creative earlier effort by Dziga Vertov, and "Kino-Eye" often shows the same kind of imagination and experimentation that reached near-perfection in his later feature "Man With a Movie Camera". The distinctive style is quite recognizable, and the experimental sequences - many of them using camera tricks - are quite resourceful.

Although there isn't a story in the conventional sense, two common themes hold it together and give it substance beyond the individual sequences. In terms of content, the activities of the Young Pioneers form the connection between the numerous short sequences. The various experiments and special camera effects themselves form the other main thread, because they are much more than mere visual tricks. In every case, they represent Vertov's effort to take the obvious, literal images that are inherent in the material, and to project them to an extreme that is either perfectly logical or perfectly impossible, depending on one's point of view.

In most of Vertov's features, he is openly interested in promoting what he considered to be the virtues of the Soviet state. Yet the interesting thing about his best features, of which this is one, is that they also have a timeless quality, because - whether he realized it consciously or not - his way of looking at things sometimes goes well beneath the surface, and when it does, it can bring out themes that underlie humanity in general, without respect to political systems.

"Kino-Eye" is certainly not as polished as "Man With a Movie Camera" - in particular, it could have benefited from tighter editing and selection of material - but it is definitely worthwhile in itself. Not only can you see Vertov's technique in a stage of advanced development, but the movie also has some material and sequences that are quite interesting in themselves.

Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) was a film theorist who regarded his camera both as a weapon for the Socialists against the bourgeois world and as a tool to help the fallible human eye digest the "visual chaos of life." Some of his speculations included that the cameraman must: remain an unnoticed observer, understand dialectical connections between discordant moments and keep up with the tempo of everyday life using a kinetic hand-held camera. Whereas cinema at the time had been more akin to literature and theater, Vertov created a cinema comparable to poetry and music. The influence of Vertov's film theories is immediate from the start as the camera work and rapid paced editing reflect the vitality of dancing and the "rhythm" of life that the director sought to achieve. While the dancers are very much aware of the camera's presence, Vertov still successfully crafts an illusion of authenticity. Vertov does not always abide by his hand-held camera rule but when the camera is static he often chooses a dynamic angle to record the action. The film is also admirable for its playfulness, as flags and stars leap atop buildings, images layer and as we witness early stages of stop motion animation. Sequences of machinery, metal gears turning, sideways soldiers marching and the "ordinary man" performing manual labor are strangely hypnotic under the "Film-Eye's" vision. In its closing sequence, Kino Eye manages to establish a clear sense of community and collective effort as the marching band and soldiers' parade through the streets. What I am most interested in seeing as a film viewer is a film where the director is conscious of the medium being used. Seeing Vertov today is still exciting and refreshing especially considering the deluded modern day mainstream cinema that places emphasis on the narrative of the film rather than the unique properties that make cinema, cinema.

To be very brief, by virtue of the manipulation of the images such as going backward in time, Vertov provides his audience with the tools to understand the medium they are being immersed in. The artificiality of the entire experience will immediately make one aware of the absurdity of the action on the screen, thereby understanding, subconsciously at least, that what they are watching is a 'fiction'.

I watched this film as part of a documentary film class, and it was at least visually one of the best I had seen. It's got a real quality to it that tries to separate itself, unintentionally of course, from the more simple propaganda films. Of course, many of the images here are displayed to show the working life of the people, some of the levity, the everyday occurrences, and mostly enveloped in scenes revolving around children. Much of this is meant, for the period, to rally support for the causes of the time, as Dziga Vertov, at least from his writings, comes off as wanting immediate change through the power of the cinema.

Over time, as it is silent and- due to the staging of some of the scenes (the opening vodka blintz is amazing, if maybe not seeming all the way on-the-spot real)- doesn't inspire the greatest amount of attention to detail though. Despite some of the lesser qualities of the film, the pure cinematic abandon and confidence in this new emerging way of telling stories in a subjective lens detailing real life endures to this day. Seeing some of these scenes with the pioneers, their practices, is pretty amusing. And a little trick involving the bull going backwards on the beltway is also close to being funny (and riffing on tricks already at use in comedies. But more than anything innovations like these strike a chord within their apparent themes. Messages do abound in the film, but it's not entirely the focus here. What it really is is just a fearless (for its time), fascinating use of the silent portable camera, where shots could be possible that weren't before giving more chances to capture a truth in life not found in studios. Even as it's years after the Russian revolution and the country's cinematic aspirations change drastically, something quirky and sincerely made like this is worth a look. If nothing else as film history, like one of the first examples of what today is reality TV, or rather what's really lacking in it.