Retrospective - Lesson 1

Four УРОКИ (LESSONS) approache the complex of the Soviet Union and cinema from different temporal, geographical, and cultural perspectives with pedagogical tongue and cheek.

Lesson 1

Revolution - Utopia

The October Revolution of 1917 was the starting point for a re-organisation of society. For leftists all over the world, the Soviet Union was a utopia on earth. The ideas and experiments of the Soviet 1920s continue to inspire today. Cinema was a crucial means of spreading the ideas of the revolution, imagining the ‘bright’ future, and form- ing a collective memory – think of the iconic images of the storming of the Winter Palace created by Sergei Eisen- stein. All three films shown centre around the Revolution and its utopian power. However, they differ in perspec- tive and judgment about it. ШЕСТАЯ ЧАСТЬ МИРА (EIN SECHSTEL DER ERDE) sketches a utopian future of the multi-ethnic state from the perspective of the 1920s, while НАЧАЛО (THE BEGINNING) falls into the stagnation phase, and АНГЕЛИ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ (ANGELS OF REVOLUTION) reflects back on the once utopian ideas.