Review of Man with a Movie Camera

Sometimes called 'A Man with a Movie Camera', 'The Man with the Movie Camera', 'The Man with a Camera', 'The Man with the Kino-camera', or 'Living Russia'. This experimental, avante-garde film is indeed, a confusing masterpiece. Driven by the vision that cameras are supposed to show a deeper truth which could not be seen with the naked eye; Soviet writer/director Dziga Vertov AKA David or Denis Kaufman did all this, in an attempt for film truth AKA Kino-Pravda. Shot with a camera, over the course of three years in the towns of Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa; the movie tells the story of a filmmaker (Dziga Vertov) traveling around a Soviet city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life. Using a radical use of montage and other inventive editing techniques, such as jump cuts, close ups, split-screen, Dutch angles, hand-held, tracking shot, dissolves, over-lane, double exposure, fast and slow motion, Dziga Vertov is able to show an excellent example of an "industrial city symphony travelogue" newsreel. Man with a Camera really does show the film truth. It pretty much influence the Cinéma vérité style in France. Because of that, there is no other silent film like this, at the time. It remind me of the silent era version of 1982's 'Koyaanisqatsi' or 1992's 'Baraka', because it has no overall narrating, actors or dialogue (In this case, much intertitles). I also love how the movie explain, how movies are made. It really expose the business, in which, they make their money. The movie even freeze frame, toward the middle to show us, the viewers, how this movie was getting edited by his wife Elizaveta Svilova. It was great insight at the time. Let's remember, there wasn't a behind the scenes or making of a film, documentary back then. So, pretty much, this was your inside look at the business, besides joining Hollywood, or going to filmmaking school. This part of the film is the reason, why I wanted to see it. The way, they film things, is interesting to me. One good example is the oncoming train scene. It was intense. Showing how they pull it off, was amazing. Probably, the best part of the scene. Another is the superimposing shot of the cameraman setting up his camera atop a big mountainous camera. Even, the shot with the cameraman inside a beer glass was cool. It emphasizes that film can indeed do anything, and go anywhere. It was so surreal. Even with those dream-like staging sequences, most of the film is a series of newsreels of real-life actualities. While, the birth and death scene is kinda graphic. Its show, how real, this movie is. The movie is also pretty political with industrial driven message. The first shot of the city, is a couple of questionable bums sleeping on a bench. It's then show a woman engaging in target practice, intercut with a box of champagne bottles, which disappear one at a time, as if she is shooting them. Then, you see shots of showing the healthy frivolous or leisure activities with that of strong industrial workers. It shows the communism new belief of rational recreation and how it's better for people to have leisure more controlled, ordered, and improving as a team, rather than the belief that one has success through self-improvement and self-enrichment. It's clearly, a shot at capitalism beliefs by then-Leninism style beliefs. A man getting a shave is intercut with an axe being sharpened, show how metaphoric, this film can be, for the people. Not everything in this movie is intense, dark & political. There were some funny moments, such as a couple applying for a marriage license, being followed shortly afterward by another couple applying for a divorce. It even got sexy and romantic at times, with a woman getting out of bed and getting dressed. Follow by a date with a couple, then marriage. However, some of the others visuals in this film, is a little too weird, like the crawfish on a plate at a seafood restaurant is made to appear to crawl away or the shots of chess pieces being swept to the center of the board to understand the meaning. I don't know, how those visuals is supposed to help the message of the contemporary "man" evolve from a flawed creature into a higher, more precise form at all. Overall: While, some of the visuals in this film is too strange for the general viewers and too stage for documentary lovers. It's still a well made movie, worth seeing. So check it out if you get the time.