Strike

There is nothing subtle about Sergei Eisenstein’s first film, Strike (1924). It is Soviet propaganda about the struggle of the proletariat against the ruling capitalist class. As such, it’s neither interested in subtlety, nor in individual characters on either side. The star of the film—to the degree there in one—is the proletariat. Ideologically, it is almost certainly going to appall some viewers—though I’d argue that this might be considered a rather timely screening. It’s no more simplistic than last year’s Atlas Shrugged Part One, which dealt from a similarly stacked deck that was just stacked the other way. Here we have the motor of the world brought to a stop by the working class—if only temporarily, since this details a 1903 strike in Tsarist Russia, meaning it will end badly. Ideology to one side, this is absolutely breath-taking filmmaking. I thought I’d seen Strike years ago (I’ve seen most Eistenstein), but now I realize I hadn’t. I would have remembered this. There is more invention in the first 10 minutes of Strike than you’re apt to see in a year’s worth of most modern movies. The cutting, the flow, the optical effects and the camera movement are astonishing. A lot of films get tagged “ahead of their time,” but this one really is. The moment the pictures in a photo album turn out to be posed actors ready to come to life on cue is as remarkable now as it was nearly 90 years ago. If you’re into film, you need to see this. Eistenstein can’t quite keep up the power of the opening for the entire film, but neither does he fall too far from that mark—and the ending sequences equal it in sheer brutal power.