User reviews

Russian master Sergei Eisenstein's first feature film is a tour-de-force of cinematic technique. He appears to have a pretty speedy learning curve, beginning straight away with a picture that is confidently crafted and extremely watchable even today.

With the exception of Que Viva Mexico (which he made outside Russia), this is Eisenstein's purest film, the one most free from the constraints of the Bolshevik propaganda machine. There is one mention of the Bolsheviks, but it's inconsequential. This is essentially a film about self-organisation of the workers – a placeless and timeless story which acts as a case study in how a strike can begin, how it can be made successful and how it can be defeated.

Strike has an incredibly exhilarating pace to it and, aside from its political message works as a pure action film. Perhaps unusually for a debut film, this is also the closest Eisenstein came to making a comedy. In a style that would mark all his films, he characterises the villains of the piece – the factory management, police chiefs and government bureaucrats – as exaggerated and often ridiculous figures of fun. The factory owner is the stereotypical capitalist – a top hat-wearing fat controller.

As usual with early Soviet cinema, Strike is essentially characterless. The story is told through the masses, and the proletariat as a whole is the hero. Eisenstein was ideally suited to this, as even in this early film he gives an unprecedented realism to the crowd scenes, and uses every technique at his disposal to create drama from mass action. Eisenstein also demonstrates early on that he has the rather unusual talent of directing large groups of people being massacred. It's an image that would crop up in nearly all of his films.

The only real weakness of Strike is that it too often slips into pretentiousness. Some of the techniques are little more than showing off. There are just a few too many superimpositions and mirror images shots. The symbolism is also often a little too heavy-handed and abstract – the two kids dancing on the table during the interrogation scene certainly baffles me; god knows what the Russian public made of it.

Eisenstein is often described as a pioneer, a founding father of film technique. However, in truth most of the techniques he used had been developed earlier, in particular by D.W. Griffith. It's just that Eisenstein pushed the possibilities of editing to their extreme. He's more of a maverick than a pioneer, as there really has been no-one like him since. Having said that, I can identify three new uses of the editing process that Eisenstein invented with Strike.

Firstly, he often uses a sequence of similar shots to give the impression of the same action being done by lots of people. For example, three shots of tools being thrown to the ground tells us quickly and effectively, in the context of the scene, that the entire workforce is downing tools. Secondly, he edits rhythmically to punctuate action. For example, a quick, dynamic action like someone throwing a punch or a door slamming shut will be punctuated by a film cut, giving it much more impact. This is particularly effective in silent film, as the jarring cuts mean you can almost hear the action in your head.

The third editing technique debuted here was the most abstract and the least influential. Whereas Griffith would edit back and forth between two or more literally related scenes (for example, between someone in trouble and someone coming to rescue them) to build up tension, Eisenstein edits back and forth between unrelated images to create a metaphor. The well-known example of this in Strike is the cutting from the workers being gunned down to shots of cattle being slaughtered – the cattle dying is nothing to do with the plot, but it makes a point. It's a clever idea, but one that was rarely imitated as it breaks up the flow of a film's narrative.

On a totally different note, a little hobby of mine is spotting modern day look-alikes in old films, and Strike has one of my favourites. The king of the beggars is a dead ringer for Shane MacGowan, right down to the missing teeth. Amazing.

Strike has to be one of the most remarkable and mould-breaking debut films of all time. It's not quite up to the level of masterpiece yet, but it's an incredible experience and genuinely gripping entertainment.

Eisenstein's most purely enjoyable film, possibly because the theorems are more lifelike. In many ways a comedy, as the villains (military, police, factory owners, underworld scabs) are caricatured and dehumanised, which makes the eventual horrors all the more shocking. The workers are, of course, idealised, but their paradise of laziness seems odd for a Communist work.

Montage is the thing, as ever with Eisenstein, both in terms of connecting images to create startling insights, and in making tense, exciting and inevitable the action; but there is an astonishing attention to compositional detail too, most haunting perhaps being the empty, abandoned, impotent, machine-heavy factories, or the vast-stepped drawing rooms of the bloated capitalists.

Sergei Eisenstein's "Strike", like his more well-known films, is interesting and contains some memorable imagery. The story is worthwhile in itself, and it repays careful attention because of the considerable detail that is shown using Eisenstein's distinctive approach. It lacks any particularly interesting characters, but then, so did "Battleship Potemkin". Only an occasional lack of polish sets this apart from Eisenstein's later films.

The story starts with the situations that provoke the strike, and then follows developments on both sides of the dispute. It becomes surprisingly involved for what seems at first to be a simple confrontation. There is quite an assortment of situations, settings, and characters. On occasion, the images are overdone, occasionally even off-putting, but you can already see the creative use of imagery that Eisenstein would later use so effectively.

"Strike" will probably be of interest mainly to those who already appreciate Eisenstein's films, but it is worth seeing. It is really only a cut below "Potemkin", which itself, though generally the most-praised of his films, might actually be surpassed by some of his later works. In any case, "Strike" displays the same kind of style, and has several of the characteristics of the fine classics that were to come.

This is Eisenstein's directorial debut and alongside Citizen Kane it may be one of the most important debuts in the history of film showcasing a fully-fledged artistic maturity. This is a fictitious narrative-driven movie though it is very consonant with reality. As a Communist Eisenstein's aesthetics was opposed to the "bourgeois" art style that considered the artistic object as a subject of contemplation. Eisenstein advocated in theoretical terms in his books and practically with movies such as this a pragmatic vision of art. Movies should have a purpose; they should mobilize the viewer into action by filing him with emotion.

This strategy is obvious early on with the use of the motto from Lenin that links the idea of organized workers and that of social action in an equation of efficiency. The movie tries to prove that the workers are entitled to organization and that only in such a manner they could achieve their full potential. The movie focuses on the workers as a group; there are no "characters" as we have grown accustomed to seeing on screen. The collective character of the workers, though, has a very powerful emotional impact on the viewer because Eisenstein knows how to present it:

1) The workers are presented in the factory, in what would appear to Chaplin, for instance as a medium of alienation. Here, the workers seem "at home" because they are so many they balance the non-human elements expressed by the machines. More than this the brilliant montage sequences emphasize that the workers are in peace in their environment, the visual patters give a clear feeling of the strength of the united workers. Later on with the advent of sound the beauty of an industrial landscape will be extraordinarily depicted by Vertov in Enthusiasm;

2) The workers are contrasted with the fat and greedy capitalists. Their environment is luxurious and far more "human" than a factory. However, Eisenstein makes it appear as a place of sin and debauchery. The cigar smoke emphasizes the strength of the exploiter much like the smoke from the furnace shows the force of the factory. There are many correspondences between the two environments which Eisenstein later uses to achieve some of the greatest and most emotionally engaging associative montages ever displayed. One of the most impressive shows a boss squeezing a lemon to fix himself a drink while the workers are squished by the police forces trying to repress the strike;

3) Individuals predominantly appear only when they are associated with heavy dramatic scenes, the innocent worker who commits suicide ( who only functions as the dramatic instigator of the plot without any real emotion displayed for the actual character who dies even if we know his actual name; it is insinuated that a human life has a meaning only as part of larger community), the child who is killed by the police, the spies who serve as much needed humorous debouches that relieve the tension associated with the workers exploitation but that also build up tension in the sense that they show the stupidity of the bosses and of their methods;

4) The key to the movie is its pragmatics. It is after all a propaganda piece and the ending clearly shows it. The advice addressed to the proletarians not to forget is charged with emotion because it discharges a tension that has been carefully build frame by frame at a rampant pace. Even if we disengage with his doctrine we should keep in mind that Eisenstein's genius can only be acknowledged in its cultural context and related to his conception of art's function in a society. We can screen out the propaganda but we must keep the emotion in order to understand this movie today at its full power.

This is an impressive looking piece of Communists propaganda, that glorify the common worker, from Russian movie-making pioneer Sergei M. Eisenstein.

It's one of Eisenstein's first movies, which also means that he was experimenting a lot in the movie, with many different compositions and with fantastic fast editing that give the movie pace and make the sequences more exciting. Some of the sequences are highly creative and artistic looking, with great cinematography and camera-angels. It makes "Stachka" real eye-candy to watch. It's a real innovative movie and by watching it you realize that there was a real craftsman at work. It's an absolutely brilliantly directed movie!

Of course if you're looking for a movie with a good story and compelling characters, look further. The movie itself is pretty simple with its story and uses deliciously stereotypical characters, such as the capitalistic, fat, cigar smoking and drinking factory owners. The movie uses so many stereotypes that the movie intentionally also works out as an humorous movie. It's very welcome, since the movie in general in its story is very serious and tries to send out a message.

The story is perhaps easier to follow than in most other Eisenstein movies. It's a very simple story that on paper sounds to weak and uninteresting to fill a 90+ movie with. Yet the movie never bores and always remains interesting and 'enjoyable' to follow, also not in the least thanks to the rapid editing that makes sure none of the sequences go on for too long and allow the sequences to speak for itself, rather then relying on the actors their performances or title-cards.

An essential viewing for movie-lovers!

9/10

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In the Soviet Union in 1903, the workers of a factory are tired of poor wages, hard living, and harsh treatment by their superiors. Talk of a strike is rife, and when one innocent worker is accused of theft, he hangs himself on the production line and unwittingly becomes a martyr. The strike is decided, and the workers gather in masses to discuss their terms. Meanwhile, the fat cats upstairs are in uproar that the strike has been called, and employ a number of secret agents with animal code names to infiltrate, brutalise and spy on the strikers. As the workers begin to fight amongst themselves, the bosses tactics become increasingly brutal, especially when the police are called in.

Sergei Eisenstein is one of the Soviet Union's greatest ever filmmakers, and arguably one the world's greatest. This was his first feature-length film (he made The Battleship Potemkin later that year, one of the best and most influential films ever made) and his trickery and style is awe- inspiring, given his inexperience and the fact that cinema was still in its early stages. The most effective technique Eisenstein plays is in the early scenes, where he juxtaposes different animals with the key players (Eisenstein was known as the 'King of Montage'). For example, there is an owl, always watching, thinking and cunning, turning into a wild-eye spy; a fox, misleadingly beautiful and sly, becoming a shapeshifting and handsome con-artist - and dancing bears, that portray the workers. The use of this is at its most powerful at the end, when the police move in to overthrow the strike, cut with scenes of a cow having its throat cut, blood gushing out of its wound as it slowly dies.

It's an incredibly stylish piece for its day and moves along at an alarming pace, even when compared to some films today. It never slows down to develop any characters, instead using its revolutionary and Communist themes to play the main role, with the characters being mere pawns in a more important overlying theme. It's clear where Eisenstein's stance is, which does also work against the film. The factory bigwigs are no more than faceless fat men in expensive suits, drinking champagne and smoking cigars all day, laughing at the misfortune of the workers. There is also a scene where one wipes his shoes clean with the workers wage demands. By today's standards, it seems a bit stereotypical, and the metaphors quite obvious. But this is an alarmingly stylish debut from a truly great film-maker, that is both exciting, and come the end, really quite shocking.

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012: Strike (1925) - released in Russia 4/28/1925; viewed 8/4/05

A law is passed in Tennessee prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The Great Tri-State Tornado tears through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby.

BIRTHS: Rod Steiger, George Cole, Eugen Weber.

KEVIN: Sergei Eisenstein's debut feature Strike was something else entirely. Every single frame of this film from the shots, the editing, the lighting, the over-the-top performances and even the themes were beyond anything we've seen so far. People must have thought Eisenstein was crazy to make films the way he did, especially on his first feature. With the kind of imagery he put on the screen, it must have been hard for his film crews to keep up with his mind. This film definitely has an underdog quality that would continue into Eisenstein's future films, most notably Potemkin. This film does have a gritty sense of reality, even though the characters are fairly two-dimensional and over-the-top. The way the camera moves with the close-ups and the very sharp focus is incredibly unique for the period, as are the kinds of harrowing images that we see over the course of the story. Here we see things happening, like the rioters being sprayed with fire hoses and the cops dropping babies off balconies, that other directors like Griffith or Murnau would never have the guts to shoot.

DOUG: It would be silly to watch all these silent films and not watch anything from Eisenstein. It is clear right from the start that he was doing things on film that no other filmmaker had dreamed of doing. The look of the shots, the lighting, the angles, the way the camera moves, and of course the editing, all of it is very unique for the time, and in fact looks very modern. Many scenes could be filmed shot-for-shot today, in color, with sound, and they would not look the slightest bit old fashioned. The editing is quite unique; Eisenstein recognized that editing could be used as stylistically as the writing or the directing to tell the story and set the mood, and used it thus in virtually all of his films. I noticed a few similarities to Potemkin, like the citizens rising up to battle the oppressive government. Eisenstein seems to have been interested in showing the steadfast camaraderie unique among the working class of Russia (perhaps it was a Communist thing). The music in this version was quite memorable; I kept on thinking of the band Stomp, who perform songs by banging trashcan lids and broom handles. There are cues in the musical score that are meant to work as sound effects.

Last film: Seven Chances (1925). Next film: The Gold Rush (1925).

The Movie Odyssey is an exhaustive, chronological project where we watch as many milestone films as possible, starting with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in 1916 and working our way through, year by year, one film at a time. We also write a short review for each film before we watch the next, never reading the other's review before we finish our own. In this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the time period, the films of the era, and each film in context, while at the same time just watching a lot of great movies, most of which we never would have watched otherwise.

Never in a silent picture have I seen political issues juxtaposed with astonishing camera work to the effect seen here. Eisenstein has created a moving work with breathtaking surrealist images. The end result is a sincerely affecting piece of drama and a palette of images far ahead of its time.

A must-see. A masterpiece.

'Strike' is debut film of great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Though the film suffers from inexperience (very uneven pace and tone compared to much more masterful 'Potemkin') of Eisenstein 'Strike' is probably the greatest silent era debut. The film is too preachy and evil capitalist are maybe too cartoonish, but what else do you expect from propaganda film. Put propaganda aside, Eisenstein managed to depict forever going class conflicts with adding humanity into mix (the sweet scene where the little kid tries to wake up his father in the morning). Also Eisenstein very early cleverly starts to hint to oncoming doom into striking workers are heading until famous final sequence where strike is violently suppressed is cleverly cross-cut with cattle being slaughtered. 'Strike' is a cinematic masterpiece that is unfortunately also the propaganda Picture.

I think Strike is over rated. Yes it has beautiful scenes, excellent framing and some quite nice editing, not to mention a fantastic ending. The last 20 min. are awesome. But sadly that's not enough. The main problem is:

1) It is way to preachy. The message is hammered in, again and again. 2) The humor is tasteless and out of tune with the whole film. 3) Many of the trick shots don't serve much purpose and are therefore distracting. 4) Some scenes are way to long, for example the introduction of the spies. 5) The story gets lost in all the symbolism. 6) Black and white pictures of people. Everyone is ether good or bad. Nothing in between.

But all this is very understandable considering that this is his first film. Those unfamiliar to Eisenstein should rather begin with The Battleship Potemkin.

It takes place during the 1912 Factory Strike in Russia. This was the brilliant debut of Sergei Eisenstein which introduced the idea of montage. Done before Potemkin, Stachka/Strike(1925) is a film about the struggle of the working class against the Tsar. The film showed of things to come for the career of Eisenstein. This was to be part of a series of films concerning the events that led to the 1917 Revolution. He shows the working class as the main protagonist in Strike. Was co-written by frequent co-writer Grigori Aleksandrov.

Stachka and Battleship Potemkin would be the only films in which Eisenstein would have complete artistic control. Like Potemkin, it also features a grand massacre sequence. Eisenstein's direction is nothing short of first class. October(1927) can be looked upon as a sequel to Strike. The images of this is an example of why the silent period was the last truly great era of visual filmmaking. Strike would be the first of many great movies from a master artist. A fine scene is the superimposition of a slaughtered bull over a scene of massacred workers.

The first thing you notice about Eisenstein's Strike is its modern feel. Even a simple glance will reveal hundreds of images and techniques that are still being used today; notice how the introduction of characters like The Owl and The Fox mirror similar introductions in films like Ocean's Eleven or even Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Notice the amazing photography that constantly adds an undercurrent of dark humour to the narrative, notice also the unsentimental editing that creates dialectical meaning from juxtaposition of disturbing images - a slaughtered cow, the vanquished strikers, a dead baby, the greed of the bourgeoisie.

Battleship Potempkin was popular with the Stalinist regime because its lack of formalism, there was little in it to fool a dim witted censor. Itserved a purpose first, an aesthetic ideal second - the same can not be said for Strike that is as visually exciting as it is politically interesting. At times it resembles Lang and the German Expressionists with its moving sculptures of factories and machinery and at others it resembles Eisenstein at his realist best. Think of the Odessa steps directed by Murnau and you get somewhere near the idea.

Strike is a black film that is made blacker by comic scenes of the harshness of pre-Revolutionary Russian life and there are dancing bears too!

Although not nearly as great as "Potemkin", this earlier Eisenstein film certainly showcases his genius eye for strong, intense cinema. Unfortunately, the plot and characters are nowhere near as interesting as the techniques being used, and, if Eisenstein wasn't the man behind it, it would certainly have fallen short of greatness. However, Eisenstein is able to save this film using some of the finest camera-work and editing I have ever seen in a classic film. "Strike" works as a brilliantly propagandic and relentlessly intense drama with even more visual flare than your standard art house film.

In silent movies, it was proved that visuals are more important than words in the cinematic language, and Eisenstein was the embodiment of this theory. While this film has its tedious moments, it is an essential work for those interested in art house and/or experimental cinema, for it is one of the most creative and visually stunning films of the 20th century.

A film which makes the case for communism, depicting capitalists as the wealthy few who exploit the masses, and the inevitable reaction to the conditions of the industrial revolution. Put more softly, it makes the case for organized labor, and for workers to utilize their strength in numbers in order to get more humane and equitable conditions - e.g. a living wage, and for children to not be exploited. At the time the film was made, during the softer period of the NEP, communism was still in an idealistic phase, one which did not foresee the disastrous reign of Stalin or the complete loss of freedom under authoritarian rule. It can be thought of as State propaganda, but the message is still highly relevant, particularly as the oligarchies seem to be the way of the world, and the wealth gap is so large.

I liked this film for its artistic imagery and frenetic pace, both of which feel modern. Director Sergei Eisenstein uses shadows, reflections, interesting camera angles and framing, fast cuts, and tight shots on facial reactions which humanize the workers (and of course dehumanize the bosses). There is a lot of style and creativity here, for example, four pictures in a photo album turning into live actors, the way the machinery of the factory is shown, and shooting into a puddle and through a glass globe. There is also a ton of kinetic energy - it's a rousing film and a call to action, and the direction and editing matches that. There isn't an individual story but that's the point, the film is about collectivism. On the other hand, as the film goes on, a lot of the activity is with the mob running here and there, which is a little less interesting. I didn't like how graphic the cow slaughter scene was, and the authorities killing a baby was not only extreme but also an unfortunate way of demonizing them. Overall though, very interesting, and a great window into an important historical movement.

Silhouettes of workers and machinery glide across the screen as we witness their daily routine. Set in Russia during tsarist rule, "discontent is spreading," and we are greeted with the stereotypical suited and booted manager puffing on a fat cigar. He has brought in spies and double agents to survey workers as tensions arise.

An ensemble piece, Strike focuses upon the masses as opposed to individual characters. Similarly to Battleship Potemkin, also featured in Essential Eisenstein Vol 1, innocents (mostly children) being caught up in the violent mix are depicted yet in fleeting moments; a stark contrast to the lingering scenes upon the Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin in which a mother's distress is seen alongside the images of her child in danger. It is a stark reminder from Eisenstein that future generations are the ones who suffer most in times of strife, yet, hauntingly, they too will grow and fill a place in society which, depending on their ancestor's actions, could start the ball rolling all over again.

The groundwork for Sergei Eisenstein's classic movie was laid out in his earlier debut, April 1925's "Strike." The director demonstrated for the first time his collection of super-quick edits and intellectual montages emphasizing the workers' collective movements to stop work and go on strike in what they considered repressive factory conditions. As in Eisenstein's early movies, "Strike's" focus is not on one magnanimous hero. He looks at humanity's problems and solutions as a group and not dependent on any particular solitary strong-willed leader.

"Strike" opens with an overview of a factory that's all machines. Workers are just one cog in the factory's mechanism of producing material. But when some machines get gummed up, all engines stop. That's when the employees decide to go on strike. Eisenstein has learned his lessons well from D. W. Griffith as he uses animals as metaphors for people and events to emphasize their objectives and helplessness. The Soviet director also illustrates the contrast between the fat cats of the factory's owners and management (reflective of the Czarist ruling system) and the poorly-paid workers in a Griffith traditional cross-cutting sequence. But as in "Battleship Potemkin," Eisenstein learned that a movie should consist more than just purely chaotic montages. He does on occasion take breathers in his films, including "Strike," to slow down the pace, to lengthen his clips to reflect the quiet domestically of the workers' home life and family pleasures. This highlights the fact people are willing to labor for a fair day's wages without the constant brutality doled out by the factories' owners and management.

"Strike's" finale is a dress rehearsal for his famous "Battleship Potemkin's" Odessa steps slaughter. Governmental troops converge on the factory strikers and herd them down a long wooded hill, firing on the unarmed workers. Eisenstein cross-cuts the immense killing of the workers with the butchering of a cow. The two images create a heightened effect that standing alone would not convey the kind of carnage taking place on that hillside. Frances Ford Capola was inspired to use a similar image at the conclusion of his 1980 "Apocalypse Now."

"Strike" was hailed as a commendable achievement for the first-time director. It is the earliest Russian entrant in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" reference book.

In Russia's factory region during Czarist rule, there's restlessness and strike planning among workers; management brings in spies and external agents. When a worker hangs himself after being falsely accused of thievery, the workers strike.

This was Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, and he would go on to make "The Battleship Potemkin" later that year. While the follow-up is certainly Eisenstein's best (and indeed one of the all-time great films of the silent era), his debut is nothing to sneeze at.

We have some very clever comparisons between people's traits and animals (the fox, the owl, the monkey) and later on a comparison between workers and a herd of cattle. The whole thing is not just politically charged (pro-Soviet, pro-Bolshevik) but saturated with symbolism.

In 1925, Sergei Eisenstein brought his experimental theatrics to the world of cinema, embracing cross-cutting, non-linear editing, and what would later get labeled as cinema verite, applying it all to what was supposed to be a giant, multi-part story of the proletariat from about 1905 to the October Revolution in 1917 (reminding me of Abel Gance's large plan for a series of films about the life of Napoleon). They only got about three movies into the plan (Battleship Potemkin was a reworking of one idea and October: 10 Days the Shook the World is something like the final part), but Eisenstein's debut feature film was something of a shot in the arm creatively to the world of cinema. Battleship Potemkin gets more attention because it was more widely seen at the time, but Strike is where it started.

One of the interesting things about these revolutionary films is that there are no real characters to speak of. We get a handful of names and some distinct faces, mostly bad guys representing the capital class and the Tsarist police, but the proletariat itself is effectively faceless. A couple of people pop up prominently for a few minutes here or there, but there's no real throughline for an audience to latch onto.

I've always considered that a conscious, revolutionary choice. Socialism was the rise of the proletariat, a class of people, a mass of people, not of any individual. Centering a story of one strike, one revolutionary action, around the planning and execution carried out or even just conceived of by one man would be counter-revolutionary on a certain level. So, this is the story of a mass of people. It is a decision that I find interesting but distancing. There's nothing to latch onto, and the lack of distinctive characters actually makes following some of the action, especially in the fourth episode of the film, when characters whose faces we've seen maybe once or twice twenty to thirty minutes before are thrown against each other, requiring the use of caricature to figure it out.

Anyway, the story is split into six parts total detailing the process from the burgeoning grumbling of bad treatment by management through the outbreak of the strike driven by the suicide of a worker accused of theft of a micrometer to the lingering days of the strike to extended efforts by management to break the strike using underhanded means.

Where the film is the most interesting is the beginning and end. The beginning is the portrait of the factory, the arch characterization of the pure proletariat and the comically corrupt and unfeeling bourgeoisie, and the tragic tale of the honest worker dishonestly blamed for theft due to the missing micrometer. The middle two sections are surprisingly lifeless. It feels like Eisenstein didn't really know how to fill out the time to feature length and filled these two episodes with slow business, very little of which actually ends up paying off significantly. The only major part is the police trying to turn one striker into a turncoat when they catch him tearing down a message from management. The final two sections are where the meat is, a burning of a royal liquor warehouse meant to turn the people into rioters (which doesn't work which doesn't matter because the police just use it as an excuse to turn on them anyway) and then an attack by the police on an apartment building where the strikers lose everything (the people won't win until October of 1917).

Through it all there's never a notion that this thing is anything other than propaganda. The worst portrayal of a proletariat is at the beginning of the fourth part, as the strike drags on, and he's impatient with his young child. Every other time, if they don't work with the Tsarist forces, then they are pure who would never, say, burn a Tsarist liquor warehouse or take it as an opportunity to ransack. They are pure victims of a violent regime who must tolerate much repression before their justified uprising to destroy the bourgeoisie in the revolution that will free the working classes.

Where the film is really compelling is in its cinematic language, a language so different that Eisenstein's backers were terrified that no one would understand what was going on (apparently, early audiences were pretty confused). The use of cross-cutting with non-linear elements has become relatively standard now to the point where regular audiences can understand the implications and connections. This, four years before Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, was forging new ground. And it's not just that it was new. It's well done. Some of it is knock you over the head obvious (the famous slaughter of the cow intercut with the slaughter of the innocents in the apartment building), but others are less so. Like, immediately before the cow, there's a moment when the wannabe turncoat rises up against the policeman interrogating him. He knocks over an inkwell which spills black ink all over a map of the district where the action is taking place. It looks great, is over in an instant, and makes the point less melodramatically than the cow slaughter does.

It's a good film. It's thin on character (intentionally), but the action of the plot is clear. Its ending is quite exciting, the plight of the poor proletariat is well-drawn, and the conflict is clear. There's hardly any depth to it, and it's nakedly propaganda for the newly risen communist rule under Lenin. However, it's an interesting and, honestly, entertaining little film.