Review of By the Bluest of Seas

By the Bluest of Seas is a surprisingly warm and funny film from Soviet Russia. The story is rather slight. Two shipwrecked sailors wash up on an island in the Caspian Sea, set to work for the local fishing commune and vie for the affections of a local lass. There are jokes and songs, all handled with a light and joyful touch. Meanwhile the sun beats down, the wind blows and the waves roll, and this looks wonderful. You can almost feel the warmth and taste the salt. The small issue of who gets the girl brings the odd shadow, but all in all life on the commune is just grand. And that's about it apart from a tiresome communist moral at the end, which I suppose qualifies as propaganda, but is only as intrusive as the moral correctives at the end of Hollywood movies of the same period. By the Bluest of Seas is a tremendously warm hearted film that seems to come from a different world to the well known Soviet classics of the 20s and 30s.