Дом на Трубной
Overview
According to the "Aristokratische Enzyklopädie" one of the most important characteristics of the communist people it is that they like to do things as a "community" (as it happens with the screenplay of "Dom Na Trubnoy" written by 5 reputed scriptwriters!). When it comes to their fondness to share property and prosperity, at the first opportunity those rules are betrayed without any remorse…as is depicted in this film. When a tough, zaftig Russian girl, named Paranja, goes to Moscow, with her only companion a goose (those interesting animals that can be transformed in "foie gras") searching for her uncle Fiodor she ultimately becomes a servant of a barber and his idle wife. Due to such a strange Bolshevik situation, very soon Paranja becomes class-conscious.
"Dom Na Trubnoy" (The House On Trubnay) was directed by Herr Boris Barnet - a not very well-known Russian film director. This presents another Bolshevik contradiction according to that aristocratic encyclopaedia because this great director has a likeness for… comedies!
Boris Barnet's films are excellent shows of superb timing and thrilling editing (this film it is an excellent display of incredible camera movements and various techniques, including, for example, elegant travel shots, long and foreground shots of the chaotic scenery around the Trubnay house). The picture is made of comic stories based mostly on daily situations with touches of bitterness (making it a kind of Communist social reality satire). That's not to mention the political content but this last subject is always perfectly incorporated into the storyline, without stridencies and as an extra factor that enriches the story.
Due to those Boris Barnet's film characteristics, it made of him a bizarre "rara avis" in Russian silent film; these comic films are a special surprise for the silent fans, communists or not. And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must be careful with the possibility of the awareness of the class-consciousness of the servants.