Moscow Laughs (Vesoyolye Rebyata). 1934. Directed by Grigori Alexandrov.

(5/7/00)

It was very frustrating to watch this film because it had no subtitles. I could not follow the story and I noted that other people in the audience were laughing at the dialogue which I was not able to appreciate. The audience applauded at the end.

So the best I can do here is to mention a couple of things that did impress me. The opening scene--a musical number--was elaborate in that it took a lot of camera movement. It is all done outside and the camera more or less follows the main character around as he sings and plays a flute or recorder.

Then he seems to call a roll call of animals, each of whom answers in its turn. There is a very funny scene involving animals which, upon hearing the leading character play his flute or recorder, invade a party, eat the food, drink the alcohol, fall asleep and generally cause havoc. The shots of the animals are framed for maximum impact. The scene begins with the leading character having what looks to me to be a ram outside the house attached to a rope. He first ties the rope arond a reproduction of the Venus de Milo, then around himself, then around someone else. It is funny when he is on the dance floor, the ram decides to go somewhere and he is pulled towards the window.

This scene at the party seems to go on a little too long for me, but it is hard to judge when I couldn't really get into the story because of the lack of subtitles.

Other interesting scenes are when this guy is mistaken for a conductor and all of his gestures seem to conduct the orchestra. Then there is a scene of a fight among musicians in which the sounds of the violence are integrated into a musical number. Very clever.

There is a wonderful shot during a scene at the beach. The camera tracks parallel to a woman and glides past feet and other anatomical parts of people lying on the sand.

There are a couple of very nice bits of animation, a couple featuring the man in the moon. The music was pleasant enough. This is a film of high spirits and my guess is that if I could have followed it I would have found it a silly, entertaining trifle, but not something I would want to watch over and over.


P.S. During the credits there appeared drawings of the faces of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyud and Buster Keaton. I wonder what that was about.