Elizaveta Svilova — Director (2)

Movie

For You at the Front! (1942) IMDb TMDB
Тебе, фронт!
other title: Тебе, фронт!
From the start, Vertov made himself known as an irreconcilable enemy of “acted films,” which he regarded as a violation of truth. At the peak of World War II, however, such lofty artistic principles proved impractical. Vertov’s poetic and patriotic For You, Front! is a fiction film with a script and two actors. In a letter to her fiancé, a soldier on the front, Saule asks if there is anything he needs from “our beloved Kazakhstan.” Yes there is, he replies: lead, which can be used to make bullets to kill the enemies of “our beloved country.”

Movie

Nuremberg Trials (1946) IMDb Douban
Суд народов
other title: 纽伦堡审判 / Суд народов …
Soviet produced look at the trials that followed the fall of Germany.
Deadly serious, this film is almost too somber to be taken with a straight face since the narration often comes across as rather preachy and purple. Its pure propaganda in the "we were right to try these people" sort of way and is clearly biased against the defendants who had just set Europe aflame. The take is rather odd and unlike any thing that I've run across in American or in Western European films on the same subject. It seems to be trying to over explain why the leaders of Germany were tried, which in retrospect is painfully obvious. Its clear from the lean toward the Soviet take of events and of its lingering on the speeches by the Soviet prosecutors who was behind the film. Its not bad but the heavy handedness of the presentation becomes wearing after a while.
If you keep in mind when the film was made its an intriguing look at how the events were viewed during their own historical period. However its probably too long at an hour, with its ponderous preaching taking away from any value the film might have had.