Hardly a silent film classic in my opinion

Rating: 4/10 (24 April 2019)

"Bronenosets Potemkin" is a Russian (or I should say Soviet) black-and-white silent film from 1925, so this one is not too far away anymore from its 100th anniversary. The director is Sergei M. Eisenstein and this is a relatively early filmmaking effort as he was considerably under 30 years at that point still. But nonetheless, this movie is generally considered one of his career-defining efforts, maybe even the number 1. The writer is Nina Agadzhanova, older than Eisenstein, but also still relatively young and this was her first film writing effort (according to imdb) of sadly not too many. It is a fairly short movie. There are several versions out there and the one I watched ran for under 70 minutes, so i think this was the DVD version. In any case, I got the chance to watch this film on a special screening in a movie theater that belonged to a museum here in Berlin. But why not. It says here on imdb this film is still winning awards in the 21st century, so why not show it. I don't want to comment too much on the cast here, actually not at all. I have no idea who these actors are and neither have I heard their names nor remembered them from other films. Maybe Russian film historians know some of them, but these are probably almost the only ones. Props if you do. Then again, this film is really the complete opposite of a movie defined by its actors. Sctually, it feels almost impossible to identify the actors again and keep up-to-date on who is who character-wise. And this is not a given, not even for films from the 1920s. A true weakness. Instead, it is all about the story and beyond that, about the historical event it elaborates on. This would be the Russian Revolution of 1905. You already see from my rating that I did not appreciate the film too much and maybe this is also partially due to personal and entirely subjective preferences as honestly my real interest in 20th century political history does not start before the 1930s, maybe slightly 1914-1918, but not 19005 unfortunately. Then again, you could also take the other perspective and say this film was not good enough to make me interested in this really tumultous era in the Soviet union back then.
With the title, of course a great deal of the film, almost the entire movie takes place on the battleship referenced in the title with the name Potemkin and what crucial role it played back then. The film is divided into several acts, some rather dramatic, others fairly slow, almost soothing (at least partially). It basically says it all that the one I liked the most took place not on the ship, but on land when the impact of a Kosak attack was depicted and a woman relentlessly fighting for the life of a child while many many rifles are pulled and people killed. But everything before that act/chapter left me mostly unimpressed. I try to ignore the music as of course it was added much later and in my opinion should not be considered when rating and revieweing a movie. The original silent version counts in this case. Still, there was one fairly funny moment involving drums. I will not say what they emphasized at that point to avoid spoilers, but yeah that was the only audible moment that stays memorable for me. And finally, at the end of my review, I would also like to say a few words about the end of the movie. It was surprisingly happy and positive. Honestly I did not see that coming at all. Happy ending were not a rarity back then in silent films, but frequently the ywent with pain and unhappiness, certainly more often than today, so I was definitely surprised. I must say I also liked the soundtrack that really made the watch better there. But enough about the music now. Overall, this film did not leave a lasting impression whatsoever and I am 99,9% sure I will never watch this one again. It's nowhere near the level of (what I consider) the classics of the silent film era. So my suggestion is here to skip the watch and I give it a thumbs-down. Another reason for that would be a common problem from silent films from all continents really: the lack in terms of quantity when it comes to intertitles. We see people talk on several occasions here. We have no idea what they are saying. Another negative deal breaker. Watch something else instead.