I was really quite surprised with this one! Maybe I was getting tired of Eisenstein's schtick when watching October (1927), but Pudovkin's filmmaking was such a refreshing change of pace. This seriously has some incredible filmmaking, the cinematography and the editing in general were just spectacular. This is still Soviet propaganda, mostly anti-imperialist (which hey I can get behind), but it's still rather manipulative in its messaging (the British were never in Mongolia, for instance). Oddly, this is a lot more of a character piece, something I've come not to expect from these types of films, and the story really works because of it. Curious to see Pudovkin's other major works, and I will definitely revisit this one.
I was really quite surprised with this one! Maybe I was getting tired of Eisenstein's schtick when watching October (1927), but Pudovkin's filmmaking was such a refreshing change of pace. This seriously has some incredible filmmaking, the cinematography and the editing in general were just spectacular. This is still Soviet propaganda, mostly anti-imperialist (which hey I can get behind), but it's still rather manipulative in its messaging (the British were never in Mongolia, for instance). Oddly, this is a lot more of a character piece, something I've come not to expect from these types of films, and the story really works because of it. Curious to see Pudovkin's other major works, and I will definitely revisit this one.
