Battleship Potemkin (1925)

This is a very famous film that nobody has heard about. This might be a pretty short review for a pretty short film. Battleship Potemkin is directed by Sergei Eisenstein and stars a helluva lot of extras. This is a propaganda film about soldiers in, well, Battleship Potemkin who don't really like how they are being fed in, well Battleship Potemkin. So they say "Why the hell are we being fed rotten meat in....well BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN!" So they say make a mini uprising because Stalin was treating them like crap. The captain decides that his crew is expandable so he chooses that his loyal comrades just waste them. But wait!!! Vakulinchuk intervenes by making the loyal troops notice who they are shooting at. The loyal troops then turn against the captains and they all throw them over board. The uprising has begun.

 

I do not think this is just a propaganda film. It is a lot more than that. It is handled so well that, well it's so much more than a propaganda film. And the reason I say that is because of the reason I think this film is so greatly remembered as one of the best. The Odessa Steps sequence. This scene is shocking, and is still shocking now.   Russians killed by Russian soldiers. Families being destroyed. Kids being shot at point blank. People pleading for mercy just to get a bullet to the face. Man killing man. It very much reminded me of Schindler's List. People dying just because. No mercy, no remorse. I cannot believe this was released in 1925. I wonder how the priest in Cinema Paradiso would have reacted to this film.

 

Now after that scene (if you can even call it that) ends the movie still goes on and you wonder: How can this film top that?! Well sadly it does not. It keeps going. So you can see this film is not perfect. No film is. Hell not even the Aviator. The flaws of this movie are that some shots are just too, too, TOO slow. Now I have seen 2001: A Space Oddysey, I was not bored in that film. I was in this one. There were just scenes where nothing was happening. Minor complaint sure but for a 70 minute movie, that was just pushing it. Still a great movie though. I highly recommend this movie. A LOT!! The parts of the Odessa Steps just make you lose all faith in humanity and many shots are, well shot with class. This is a great movie and it's....well Battleship Potemkin.

 

8.5/10

 

(P.S. What the hell did the baby in the carriage mean????)

 

(P.S.S You can watch this film for free on YouTube! Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh2SuJrEjwM&feature=watch-now-button&wide=1 )