The film Oktyabr tells the story of the overthrow of the provisional government by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Being a history enthusiast I was excited to see this film in film class, but by the end of the movie I was extremely disappointed. The movie was far from being historically accurate and showed more like a recruitment film for the Bolshevik cause. Every group other than the Bolsheviks in the film are depicted as cowardly, stupid, ugly, incompetent ,evil or a mixture of all five . I would go as far to say that the provisional government and the bourgeoisie was depicted as comically evil, grinning fiendishly while killing the herculean exemplar Bolshevik man with umbrellas or gunning down idyllic peaceful protesters. In contrast every Bolshevik man, woman and child is shown as the summit of human purity and self sacrifice working only to better the Bolshevik cause. The film is on its most basic level propaganda, produced during the height of Stalin's Russia.
While the accuracy of the historical account is questionable at best and outright revisionist at worst the film can be praised for its advanced film editing techniques. The director of the film Eisenstein was a genius film editor and the movie is riddled with complex film tricks. Eisenstein famously used montages throughout the film in order to get across highly sophisticated symbols. In fact the film was criticized at the time of its release for using too much symbolism which was seen as too difficult for the average Russian peasant to understand.
To sum up my opinion of the movie if you enjoy historically accurate movies look somewhere else but if you are interested in the origin of complex film editing you have come to the right place.
While the accuracy of the historical account is questionable at best and outright revisionist at worst the film can be praised for its advanced film editing techniques. The director of the film Eisenstein was a genius film editor and the movie is riddled with complex film tricks. Eisenstein famously used montages throughout the film in order to get across highly sophisticated symbols. In fact the film was criticized at the time of its release for using too much symbolism which was seen as too difficult for the average Russian peasant to understand.
To sum up my opinion of the movie if you enjoy historically accurate movies look somewhere else but if you are interested in the origin of complex film editing you have come to the right place.