Aleksandr Dovzhenko-Arsenal (1928)

Posted By : FNB47 | Date : 10 Apr 2007 15:03:00 | Comments : 2 |

Aleksandr Dovzhenko-Arsenal (1928)
| 725.8 MB | Runtime 1:13:25 | b/w |
Language : -silent movie-
Forced subtitles : Russian / Ukrainian / English
Audio : mp3, 48000 Hz, 104 Kb/s, 2-ch
Audio Track-2: Commentary in English
Video : XviD, 1100 Kb/s, 29.97 frm/s, 480x368 (4:3)

This avant-garde masterpiece from renowned Ukranian director Alexander Dovzhenko employs the most complex and elliptical montage style of any Soviet masters in this treatment of events from the Ukranian Civil War. Based on an actual incident from 1913, the story concerns a group of Bolsheviks who battle counter-revolutionary nationalist troops in Kiev, putting up an Alamo-like defense of their cause inside the city's "Arsenal" munitions plant. Outnumbered by the nationalist troops, the defenders demonstrate their revolutionary spirit in the climactic battle which displays a dazzling mixture of traditional Ukranian folklore with modernist film techniques for a dazzling collage! (-DVD cover)

The Great War (World War I) has brought devastation, heartache, and hardship to the Ukrainian people. Their soldiers, likewise, have faced horrors from the enemy and threats from their own officers. One recently demobilized Ukrainian solider, Timosh, returns home after surviving a train wreck, and arrives during a celebration of Ukrainian freedom. But Timosh begins to challenge the local authorities, and then, at the All-Ukrainian Congress, he calls for the soviet system to be adopted. In Kiev's Arsenal munitions plant, where Timosh has worked, feelings are running especially high. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0019649/plotsummary)

Alexander Dovzhenko's films are composed of astounding images and exciting dramatic moments, often in hard-to-follow narratives. Arsenal is no exception, a cinematically thrilling but narratively confusing story of a small band of factory workers who rise in rebellion and hole up in the Kiev munitions plant as nationalist troops surround the city. (amazon.com)

Based on a true story, the film explores conflicts in the Ukraine between the White Russians and the communist Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Worker Tymish (Semyon Svshenko) breaks with his fellow citizens to join the people's army and returns to face his countrymen in an impossible battle. (amazon.com)

A true document of the Soviet avant-garde at its most idiosyncratic, the film doesn't always make the finer points clear to the non-Soviet audience, but the stunning images and expressionist moments--as when Tymish miraculously survives point-blank fire from the enemy, symbolic of the enduring revolution in the face of sacrifice--give it a powerful cinematic life. (amazon.com)

Dovzhenko, considered by many critics to be the poet of Soviet cinema and a Ukrainian himself, invests the film with a sense of purpose and an astounding visual beauty. This digitally mastered new edition presents the most complete version of this Soviet masterpiece ever seen. (amazon.com)