Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Victor Khomenko (i) on June 14, 2001 at 08:34:24

Last time I saw it was quite a few years back... when I was five or six. I vividly remember the atmosphere and somehow managed to retain a lot of scenes, episodes, faces etc. I also remember the rather poor quality.

So I never really revisited this work. Plus the other great Eisenstein film - Alexander Nevsky - always took the front stage with me - swords, armor, battles, you know, the stuff that gets the teenagers going.

But when I saw that brand new two-DVD Criterion set on the shelf right next to the likes of Titanic and SPR, I hesitated very little.

I expected some resistance from my wife, but was surprised to encounter an enthusiastic reaction - turns out she never saw the film in its entirety - the fact she managed to keep well hidden all these years... if only I knew it back then...

In one word the film is a true masterpiece (OK, so it is TWO words...). Simply incredible in many spots, breathtaking. Criterion has done tremendous job and the image is first rate, even if it does modulate in brightness a bit in few spots.

The sound is wonderful too, even though I left the subtitles on just in case, as I remembered the awful sound of the original. In this case we could understand almost every word, and the noise was surprisingly low, none of that frying fish stuff. Great job all around.

We are not going to touch on the historical aspects, Stalin vs. Ivan and the rest. The film should not be confused with a textbook, it is a work of pure art and should be taken as such.

I know there is natural reluctance on part of many potential movie goers to delve that deep in the past - mostly based on previous bad experiences. This makes the Criterion release that much more valuable, as it does remove that layer of difficulty, like cleaning the Michelangelo's fresco's, contraversial as this might be.

All in all, I am now considering buying that copy - the rental place sells the films they have usually at good price.

Now, is that going to be enough to lift my tremendous reluctance and make me watch the Battleship Potemkin again? Perhaps not. Unlike the Ivan, the Potemkin has been overused the the commies to force-feed us the revolution kaka, so it has a tremendous baggage. Like a dog who will never let the obusive hand pat it, I am stayng away from that work. Besides, I remember it too well.