Mutiny on a Russian battleship 1905 with consequences both tragic and heroic

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2019)

Of course it is still impressing after almost a hundred years, for its amazing sense of details, its tremendously dramatic impact, its highly strung pathos and its wonderful cinematography all through, but still there is room for some objections. It can't be helped, but it is tendentious, it glories in Soviet nationalism with the individual being effaced in the movement of the masses, it even says so in the text, and it is somewhat hysterical in its constant muddle of crowds amassing and running together in fanatic frenzy, which reminds me of the fanatic Christians massing together to massacre the poor Hypatia in the Agora film. It's a film about crowds for the masses, where individualism is completely run over and abolished, which it can't be for human reasons. It's a great film but with tendencies that must bring misgivings, as a prelude to the age of totalitarianism under Stalin and others.