Vperëd, vremya! (Forward March, Time!)
Vladimir Tarasov, 1977
Uncompromisingly nightmarish, this pre-Shooting Range short from the distinctive Tarasov harshly parallels the purported glory of the USSR in its autumn years against the truth of the state's ruined and restless people. Framed around 1920s poetry, music and advertisements by Vladimir Mayakovsky, articles of Soviet pride are sideshows and grand structures are in shambles. Through paintings, photographs and abstract animation, a chronicling of Soviet milestones unfolds alongside urgings for the tenements of old to give way. Is Tarasov more lamenting the crumble of his government or heralding the dawn of a new one? One image in particular stands out, of a spaceship's robotic arms shattering a ceramic coin jar. This appears to suggest that however history carries forth, there is hope the Soviet effort will not have been for nothing - that lessons will be taken - though further research indicates the bank-breaking and its subsequent imagery actually represents a condemnation of Lenin's New Economic Policy (which allowed for limited private enterprise, post-Revolution). Watch Forward March, Time!.
Rezul'taty XII s'ezda partii kooperatsiya
(Results of a XII Party Congress (of Cooperation))
Director Unknown, ~1925
A summing up of the Bolsheviks' final congress of the Lenin regime, this poster depicts benefits of agricultural cooperation in direct contrast to the benefit of individual merchants. We are presented first with the ideological conclusion then shown an example of three farmers who opt for collectivization over competition and succeed as well as their former distributor had prior to the union. Though straight-forward as they come, Results' agenda does have a leg up on much of its ilk for its focus on a solutions as well as its portrayal of communal efforts bringing prosperity. Watch Results of a XII Party Congress (of Cooperation).
Sovietskie igrushki (Soviet Toys)
Dziga Vertov, 1924
Where warring church factions fail in this, the strange and whimsical first animated Soviet film, a hammer- and sickle-wielding pair attempts to repair the stubborn gluttony in an embodiment of the New Economic Policy. In line with subsequent obesity metaphors in these films, the core of this man's selfish ideals is his bulbous belly that grows larger with each indulgence - food or otherwise. Ultimately Soviet soldiers form a New Year Tree (the proposed alternative to a Christmas tree) from which the man, his mistress and church representatives are hung from nooses, or pruriently by their skirt in the case of the mistress, as ornaments (referred to in Russia as "toys"). Dziga Vertov of Kino-Pravda notoriety, through caricatures popularized in the newspaper "Pravda", strongly suggests the superiority of Soviet ideals over religious ones as the USSR became the first state to aim for elimination of religion. Watch Soviet Toys.
Plyus elektrifikatsiya (Plus Electrification)
Ivan Aksenchuk, 1972
Spurred by Lenin's declaration that Soviet power infused with technological automation will forge an idyllic society, the arguably formalist Plus Electrification smacks of a Soviet take on Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. Transmission towers represented in part by a charioting Helios, the Greek god of the sun, march through towns and over countrysides bestowing illumination via street lamps and giving way for more efficient and comforted lifestyles. Also suggested are eased diplomacy and trade with outlying countries. Demonstrative animation couples with footage of electrical equipment and its operators to exemplify realized potential. Soon a pollutive factory is converted to clean electricity, commencing the prediction that a grand Soviet future will unfold with superior agriculture, improved recreation and even satellite-controlled weather, all apparently controlled by one man and in direct parallel to the progress charted thus far. In an unconsciously sinister moment, a satellite dish towering over what appears to be Mongolia's Gobi Desert forcefully manipulates the clouds. Watch Plus Electrification.
Samoedskiĭ malʹchik (Samoyed Boy)
Valentina & Zinaida Brumberg, Nikolai Khodataev & Olga Khodatayeva, 1928
Soviet anti-mysticism strikes again in this, the alleged first Soviet film for children, as an Eskimo boy makes a fool of his tribe's fabled shaman and exiles himself to soon discover education in Leningrad. Perhaps the most effective aspect at work here is that the audience is permitted to buy in to the shaman's teachings until the very moment the protagonist no longer does. To this extent his journey becomes our own over a modest seven-minute running time. Interestingly, though belief in the unseeable is unequivocally spurned in favor of Lenin's Marxism, the film's final moments depict a reflective homesickness. Watch Samoyed Boy.
