The film tells the story of this Russian town and it’s inhabitants in the 1910s on the cusp of World War 1. The film has a very loose collection of episodes. The most affective scene is the very harrowing war scenes which Kubrick must have studied for his masterpiece Paths of Glory. The least successful aspects of the film are it’s structure which all over the place. It also anticipates some of Samuel Fuller’s war films in uncompromising work at warfare. It’s all about the mirror of the conflict on war on the homefront and frontlines. This is very effectively done near the end which innovative editing of the soldiers and fast cuts back and forth to a bunch of workers making shoes.
The film is noted for it’s use of sound which at times are horribly done, the sound effects are used in a humours matter and really distracts from the images on screen. The film would be much greater if it was done a lot more seriously because the film’s subject matter is so serious. It’s also not done in the way something like Life is Beautiful, which has a pitch perfect juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy.
The film has some brilliant cinematography, which is always expected with Soviet cinema. The scenes of the trenchs are amazing and some amazing landscape photography as well. Despite some previously mention moments the editing is very poor which is sad cause the film could really use some more focus and strange because after all modern film editing owes everything to the Soviets.
Overall it’s really interesting piece of early Soviet cinema but I think it would have been a much greater had it been Silent; you don’t hear that one everyday.
Ian Schultz
UK Release Date: 12 November 2012
Directed By: Boris Barnet
Cast: Aleksandr Chistyakov, Sergei Komarov , Yelena Kuzmina
Buy Outskirts: DVD
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