Communism

Rating: 4/10 (7 February 2011)

So let's talk about the communist over tones in this film. The red flag that they hoist is only the most obvious so I believe I'll just skip that one. All right now communism has a few basic tenants that are shown in this movie. One of which is that the whole is more important than the individual. Now this is shown throughout the movie as rarely is a character named, in fact only a few characters in the entire movie are given names. Later when the dead sailor is laid out and almost all the people in the city walk past it may seem that they are paying undue respect to one person (going against communism), but I choose to interpret it as the dead sailor being a part if the whole (the whole being the people of Russia) and they are honoring him because they all feel his lose, because under the communist principle he's a part of all of them. Continuing communists don't pay much mind to religion, I forget why but I do remember that religion and communism don't really mix. This is shown in the film, first as the representation of Christianity, a priest on the ship is played by a man who basically looks like a hobo. We know from this time period in Russian directors would choose common people who looked the part to play the character. The fact that they chose and unkempt, unclean, man to play a man of god speaks to what they imagined a priest would look like. Later as one person suggests that they attack the Jew, the reaction of the other Russians (looks of surprise, and disgust) show their thoughts of religious squabbles. The current government is shown as a, too powerful entity that needs to be gotten rid of as the soldiers kill defenseless people and the sailors overthrow the captain and attack the other ships. It seems that the rest of the Russian agree with this because the other battleships eventually join in the rebellion.