Montage documentary by Sergei Selyanov, based on an article by Kovalov in which he proposed a new approach to the history of Soviet film. In the twenties and thirties, when Communist Internationalism officially ruled the roost, Kovalov argues that film was dominated by ‘the Russian idea’; Communism was more inculcated with a Russian messianic ideology than with Marxism. By quoting in a specific way from well-known films by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov, Kovalov and Selyanov expose unexpected ideas in these films. This way they reveal the tragic ambivalence of a phenomenon that many of their contemporaries just labelled ‘totalitarian cinema’ and also show how the film-makers themselves fell victim to the all-consuming ‘Russian idea’.
