Enthusiasm, Symphony of the Don Basin. 1931. Directed by Dziga Vertov.

(6/2/00)

This film was shown without subtitles. I was not able to follow it.

It is filled with Vertov's exuberance, his delight in special effects such as superimpositions and putting pieces of film together. One thing he really loved was titting the camera when filming so that scenes are shown diagonally.

We see shots of a woman with radio headphones. I don't know what that was supposed to be about. Then images of people visiting a religious icon of Christ on the cross and kissing its foot. Later we see people removing things from churches. I think they are removing them to destroy them.

There are lots of shots of parades and as the film goes on we see more and more scenes of people at work. There are many scenes of machines, though they are not as interesting as the machines in Joris Ivens' The Bridge. We see people working with the machines. The film appears to be a celebration of industrialism. More than that, it seems like a celebration of work.