Friday, January 1, 2010

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

I wont lie about the reason I watched Battleship Potemkin. I thought it said Battleship Pokemon.




After the dissappiontment set in, I was also thoroughly underwhelmed by this film and it's inclusion on the 1001 Movies to See list.

Battleship Potemkin is a Soviet propaganda film about a mutinay aboard a Battleship, the one from which the title takes it's name, and the subsequent uprising it causes. The uprising is, of course, put down with extreme prejudice by the pre-soviet Russian government. There's also a baby rolling down some stairs and a  man with no legs..

There isn't much to talk about here. The movie has aged quite poorly, the acting is silent film acting near it's worst and it's just not that interesting. There is a ten minute chunk of the movie, during the uprising in Odessa, that the movie does shine. The film-making is quite effective and surprisingly brutal for a film of the era. I wouldn't tell you to avoid Battleship Potemkin, just that there are significantly better silent films to spend your time with. At least it's not the worst silent from on the 1001 Movies to See list.


4/10

2 comments:

Squish said...

Ooo! Ooo! Foolish Wives! I win! That's the worst on the list!

WOOORST. Don't do it.

Chris said...

Yep...Foolish Wives takes the prize, I'd like to talk to the people who threw that dry heave of a movie on the list.