This film is not for those who demand story or characters -- although from the silent era it is basically a feature length "slice of life" film done in what would have passed for documentary style at the time of its release. There is much to be appreciated here. The style of the photography and editing are both excellent. It's fascinating to gain sort of a window into the world of Moscow in the 20s. The man with the camera himself could easily have been a cheap gimmick, but the film's creators seem to intend for us to see him as a sort of "everyman", who by witnessing and recording all the events that he comes across becomes the chronicler not so much of his own day or his own journeys as the lives of others and the life of the city as a whole. This, like so many aspects of the film, dovetails the artistic goals of the film-makers with the propagandistic goals of the communist state for which this film was created. In that ideology the needs of the individual are always subsumed by the needs of the many. Indeed this film strives, with some success, to portray the lives of each of the city's inhabitants as a sort of microcosm of the entire city's life. As such the film is also designed to show off Russian innovation in the sciences and the arts, and this is where the film becomes overly crude for my tastes, dwelling for too long on overhead shots of labrythlike railway tracks slithering through the city in what appear almost to be geometric or artistic patterns, we see the industrial machines, at times it is almost reminiscent of Lang's "Metropolis" except in this case it is basically portraying Moscow as "the city of the future..... today!" and that for me is where the film goes too far in the direction of propaganda, although being silent it's certainly fair to say that's just my interpretation.
Review of Man with a Movie Camera
