The End of St. Petersberg

Vsevolod Pudovkin's take on the Russian revolution and the overthrow of St. Petersburg and the tsars is sheer Marxist propoganda. Fortunately, it is also liberally endowed with the traits of early Soviet cinema's finest craftsmen. It may not be as good as Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, but it did have a handfull of moments that almost made me want to raise my pitchfork and join the workers' revolution. It has a very simple-minded, Tarzan-like mentality in which worker=good/honorable/noble and capitalist=evil/sneering/ugly. It would almost be funny if it weren't so well crafted. One scene in particular stands out -- when the white army is persuaded by a revolutionary hero to turn on their officers and joint the proletariat. It's brilliantly photographed and edited -- in fact, most of the film is. It's a mastery of cinematic technique with no real heart, and the end shows a Lenin-like heroic figure standing triumphantly over the fallen city of St. Petersburg.