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by dialectic argument. Long and frequent passages of dialogue, treated in the crudest newsreel method, serve to put across the Marxist philosophy. To the audience with no knowledge of the Russian language these are naturally the dullest moments, relieved only by the sudden crises of strike and conflict. The first part of the film is probably the best. Pudovkin has always excelled at setting the stage and the initial statement of his argument. You will recall St. Petersburg and Storm Over Asia in this connection. The sequences in the shipbuilding yards at Hamburg, the weakening of the strikers and the final breaking of the strike by blacklegs and machine-guns are the finest descriptive passages. Vet even in these I felt that Pudovkin failed to get below the surface of the incidents. His proletarian meetings did not secure my sympathy. There was no sense in the shouting mouths of workers. They behaved like bawling agitators and not like workmen fighting for an honest wage. By now, also, I had imagined that Pudovkin had realised the futility of exaggeration, but still there is the capitalist presented as a worthless, half-witted maniac, too lazy to speak, too tired to yawn. The libel is so grossly untrue, the effigy so patently childish, that the social purpose fails to score. Pudovkin cannot afford to lie, no matter what propaganda is served. It weakens his case and destroys our attention.
Technically, the film is as uneven as the presentation of its theme. Moments of inspired direction and brilliant cutting are alternated with long passages of mediocre cinematics which do not seem the work of the same man. Here and there flashes of technical skill stab us in the dark — falling chains, riveters at work, a riot with the police, a suicide in the street. But they are all too rare amid the monotonous treatment of the dialogue scenes. The sound i> handled carefully and is based on a theory of conflicts. Unlike most opinions, I found some of it effective. Shaporin's music was well edited with actual sounds. At times it was used to create audience emotion in direct contradiction to the visual image-, day music accompanies a suicide, busy traffic is cut to the rhythm of a waltz t<> express the lazy luxury of the capitalist world with the policeman at point-duty performing the dual tasks of conductor of traffic and music. But against all this we must bear with long, ugh' silem and black-outs, disjointed and irritating.
Two years of toil have gone into the making of this strange mixture. With A Simple Case Pudovkin entered a side-track, seeking to impose formal method on theme. With Deserter he has penetrated further into the wilderness. But I cannot help but admire his courage and inspiration, his integrity and knowledge: and who are we 10 say whether he is right or wrong when the ground that he is treading is still unexplored? Paul Rotha.
JI7