Stachka/Strike (1925)

Country: Soviet Union

Released: April 28th, 1925

Genre: Drama, Propaganda

Directed by: Sergei Eisenstein

Produced by: Boris Mikhin

Written by: Grigori Aleksandrov

And I thought D.W Griffith had trouble with subtlety, yeesh. 

Stachka is a Soviet propaganda film designed to glorify the proletariat and demonize the bourgeois, and thank god! All these none-Bolshevik films was starting to make me forget the glory of Communism. Remember kids, there is no such thing as the ethical exploitation of labour under a capitalist system. "Capital" as the fat cats of Wall Street like to call it is nothing more than the toil of the worker. Adam Smith was mass murderer and a monster on the level of that fascist pig Hitler. Now that we've got that out of the way onto the review.

Directed by... Eraserhead apparently, Stachka chronicles the story of a strike, the rise of workers, their discrimination by their superiors, and their eventual slaughter at the hands of law enforcement.

And that's it. No really, that's it, that's the whole plot, a strike. There is no main character, no protagonist, no consistent villain beyond a series of assholes, not even any real side characters either. Sure there's the occasional character that crops up more then once but they're never given any focus beyond being used as tools to create emotional resonance for the overall plot. I'm pretty sure only one or two characters even has a name, and they're nicknames to boot. I suppose the point is that the workers themselves are the hero, reinforcing the notion that they're all equal, but without a protagonist for the audience to project on the movie quickly stops being compelling. We never even see the workers do anything particularly virtuous or good, we're expected to believe that they're the good guys just because they're the proletariat. It makes sense of course considering this was just after the end of the Russian Civil War when Bolsheviks were cementing their political power and people where expected to take this at face value, but to modern audiences it's not engaging. In fact the whole Communist-Capitalist struggle in and of itself feels dated to people my age. There's a notable rift between my generation and that of my parents, who were in their twenties when the Berlin wall fell. I'm always bemused whenever I hear conservative American politicians use "Communism" or "Socialism" as grave insult, or whenever a Latin American politician rambles about the "Class Struggle." It really feels like something from a bygone era, something before my time that I can't really relate to. 

This disconnect is especially highlighted by Stachka. The bad capitalists look like they all jumped out of a political cartoon, wearing top-hats and monocles, smoking cigars, and stuffing food into their fat, gluttonous faces as they discuss how best to crush those pesky workers. If there was any sound in the movie I'd bet my life savings I would've heard at a "harumph" or two, and I was shocked that they weren't introduced with a panning shot over a skull-shaped base protruding from a volcano. The metaphors are just as subtle, with two particularly erroneous moments including the capitalists squeezing a lemon as they discuss crushing the workers, saying things like "you've got to squeeze each drop," and the final scene where the killing of the striking workers by Tsarist soldiers in intercut with graphic footage of butchers slaughtering a cow.

"BOY, I WONDER WHAT THE MOVIE IS TRYING TO SAY!"

The last shot is literally the words "Remember" as a pair of creepy, Big Brother eyes stare at you. It all feels so preachy. And yes, I know propaganda isn't supposed to be subtle but that doesn't make this movie any more enjoyable. Stallone also did propaganda with Rocky IV and Rambo III and those were at least fun or had a plot. This just feels tedious. Some of the visuals are thematically well done like cutting back between the riotous workers and the despondent factory owner as he marches through his empty, ransacked offices, but it doesn't do enough to make up for the lacklustre plot. Really the only exceptional moments come when the cinematography is allowed to go wild. The first ten minutes illustrate this especially well with great stylistic choices like having conspiring workers only visible through their shadowy silhouette or filming the factory against the reflection of a mud puddle as workers march through. These shots are all compounded by a fast paced editing style that permeates the whole film. But while this breakneck editing is effective early on it eventually becomes tiresome and makes the movie difficult to watch. I went to the kitchen for two minutes while the film was still playing and when I came back I was completely lost on what was happening. That's impressive in it's own right considering the oversimplified plot but regardless does not make for a pleasant movie experience.

Overall, not great. But what was I supposed to expect from a Soviet propaganda piece? I hope Capitalist-Communist subtext doesn't become too overbearing as the list goes on but considering that we're just three years into the existence of the Soviet Union I'm not holding my breath.