Arsenal (Restored Edition)*

• 1928 ----- b & w ----- 75 min ----- vhs
• (Directed and written by Alexander Dovzhenko; with Semyon Savshenko, G. Kharkov, Amvrosi Buchma) Perhaps the avant-garde masterpiece of the renowned Ukrainian director, Alexander Dovzhenko, Arsenal employs the most complex montage style of any of the Soviet masters in this treatment of events from the Ukrainian civil war. Based on an actual incident from 1918, the story concerns a group of Bolsheviks who battle against counter-revolutionary nationalist troops in Kiev. The Bolsheviks put up an Alamo-like defense inside the city's "Arsenal" munitions plant. Outnumbered by the nationalist troops, the defenders are overrun and defeated in the climactic battle, but their revolutionary spirit prevails. Dovzhenko presents harsh, realistic scenes of Czarist brutality and war's destruction, but his juxtapositions of the Russian workers and peasants are both impressionistic and symbolic. (English intertitles, with a musical soundtrack) (Restricted to classroom use only)
• Topics: (History: Russian, East European and Central Asian, Motion Pictures: Features, Motion Pictures: History, Political Science: Russian, East European and Central Asian, Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Slavic Languages and Literature, Soviet Union, War and Peace)