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Звeнигopа (Zvenigora)

Director: Alexander Dovzhenko
Year: 1928
Runtime: 1 hr 31 min
Source: Youtube

Zvenigora is a fascinating film, one that seems utterly unmoored to its time, but its also mystifying - I ultimately couldn't break into the layers of meaning that I know are present.  It's the first film on the list that I was compelled to watch a second time, when a poor print online with Google-translated subtitles got me searching on Ebay for an only slightly better bootleg DVD collection of Dovzhenko's works.

But after two viewings, there are still basic questions about this film that I can't answer, such as the complicated feelings that Dovzhenko, as a native Ukrainian, held towards communism and the Soviet takeover.  Many of the images of rapid industrialization are shared with Vertov's nightmarish Eleventh Year, but it's hard to know what to make of them, since so much of the film is shrouded in abstract symbolism.  There's a strange mix of genres on display here, from supernatural nationalist fantasy (I find comparisons to Tolkien or Miyazaki, but that is a stretch) to Dadaism (akin to Entr'acte) to the communalist films of Eisenstein, but my poor knowledge of the culture of the time period means that I'm ultimately frustrated that I can't get more from Zvenigora.  As with A Page of Madness, it only makes me wish that I could take a world silent film course.

In any case, there are good analyses online, and though I don't like to read extensively about films before discussing them here, I will afterwards if I have time.

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