Review of Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Adrian C — 12 Apr 2008

Dziga Vertov was a member of the "Left Front", along with Rodchenko, Eisenstein and Pasternak... we're talking Soviet cultural glitterati here. "Man With a Movie Camera" was his attempt to create a film of "life caught unaware of the camera", knitting together the documentary scenes of late 1920s Russian life with (at the time) groundbreaking techniques.

The special effects look a little clumsy and basic by post-WW2 standards, but this really doesn't detract from the quality of the film, both as a historical document and a surprisingly light-hearted view of life in early Stalinist Russia. What particularly grabbed me was the lack of grim, charmless uniformity we associate with later views of Soviet life... maybe I'm just falling for Vertov's particular interpretation of "film truth", but Moscow looks like a diverse, vibrant and cheerful place in these clips. The same goes for the holiday scenes of (I assume) one of the Black Sea resorts.

Well worth a viewing if you have any interest in social history of the 20th century.