March 30, 2012

Man with a Movie Camera


Chelovek s kino-apparatom, 1929. Images of the Soviet Union, shot by an anonymous but ever-present camera man. Directed by Dziga Vertov.

Concept: 4/4 (Great). I'm not convinced that Vertov succeeded in what he set out to do - but if his ideas had caught on with other filmmakers, I might feel differently about that.
Story: 0/4 (Terrible). If ever a movie could warrant a "n/a" in the story category, this would be it. I just can't bring myself to do it.
Characters: n/a
Dialog: n/a
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent). Most shots only last a couple seconds, which would be normal. But in this case, where the lack of narrative context means you don't know what you're going to be looking at until after you've seen it, that speed means you never have a chance to blink without missing something. It's actually a physical challenge to watch this movie.
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: n/a
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent). The Alloy Orchestra score overwhelms the film (arguably a good thing - it gives you something easy to follow), and isn't particularly good music besides.
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). It does something. I don't know what it does, but simply recognizing that something's happening is pretty interesting. It's hard to judge after only watching it once. I'm really in no hurry to watch it again, though.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)

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