Battleship Potemkin

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2012)

From director Sergei M. Eisenstein (Strike, Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 and 2), I had heard about this Russian documentary style silent film, and obviously it featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I had to watch it. Basically, set in 1905, we see the sailors on the battleship Potemkin protesting against having to eat meat that is rotten, and it eventually turns into rough mutiny, in which the leader Grigory Vakulinchuk (Aleksandr Antonov) is killed. There is a big mourning for the commanding officer by the Odessa people, and not long after Tsarist soldiers show up to massacre the people on the Potemkin Stairs, i.e. the Odessa Staircase, many innocents including children and parents are killed. The final scene (of five) sees a squadron cheering on the rebellious Potemkin battleship instead of carrying out their mission to stop and engage it, and they wave their flags of friendship and brotherhood before parting ways. The most famous scene of the film is of course the staircase sequence, including the moment with the mother with glasses screaming with blood in her eye and down her face watching her child die in the massacre, and the famous moment of the baby in the pram going down the stairs, a moment recreated in films like The Untouchables. I will admit I did not understand the story all the way through, and this was not just because of the lack of sound, and this is only a fictionalised version of the 1905 Revolution, but for the iconic imagery and small gripping sequences it is a rather essential classic silent history drama. Very good!