This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry.
Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man With a Movie Camera)
I will tell you right off the bat that I did not love this movie, no I do not even think I can say that I liked it. And because of that you may now judge me and say that I really don't know anything about movies. You might say that if I can't appreciate this film that I can't appreciate film in general. And I am almost feeling like I should be judging myself that same way.
The movie is famous as an early inspired example of what film can do. How editing and montage and many other "tricks" and perspectives of film can be used to tell a story without a traditional narrative. How it can say so many different things and express so many different themes in a single sequence. And I understand that. I listened to the commentary. I have read some material dissecting the film. But I just don't like it. But I'm not sure if that's the same as not appreciating it or not respecting it.
I have to wonder if I would have felt the same way if I had seen the film in a different context. Maybe within the actual time and place it was originally released. Or maybe some other time and place when it would have been more appreciated or revolutionary. I'm not sure. I've seen a couple early Russian films now and most of them I find boring. They are full of propaganda. And the supposedly brilliant editing actually leaves me behind more than a modern day music video which is often cited of an example where editing occurs an excessive amount to appease our current attention deficit disorder suffering society.
So I'm kind of ambivalent towards these films. There interesting historically and maybe for academic discussion, but there are a lot of films that would fit those qualifications that I would also enjoy watching.
Anyone disagree with me? I'm actually much more captivated with more recent Russian filmmakers like Tarkovsky (whose editing pace is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum) but a lot of people find him pretty boring as well.
Rating: 5/10