https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97Pa0ICpn8&t=2363s

Written and Directed by Dziga Vertov

The Man with the Movie Camera (1929) written and directed by Dziga Vertov is a film that captured my interest in a pretty obscure way. Over the semester break I visited the MoMA exhibit where I discovered a snippet of this film, from then I have been very curious to check it out but have never really got around to it. But after thinking critically about films for the last few weeks in class, especially avant-garde films my memory finally jogged to check this film out. And I’m so glad that I did.

This experimental soviet silent documentary is complex in so many different ways, despite not having any actors or script it creates a narrative that can be relatable universally despite culture and language. The film tells the story of an audience being told the story of a modern soviet city. It’s framed around an audience entering a cinema, taking their seats and the set up of a camera which can give the indication that not only this film about the city’s its portraying but the art of film making itself.

Mid-way through the film you actually see the film being physically constructed on screen. You see shots of the audience, the camera man and then the subject who is being filmed, which really shows how the documentary has been constructed to show the reality of a day in the life of a soviet city.

Things I like about this film is how it shows realism, but also reflects upon the process of physically creating a film. Even though it was filmed over the course of 3.5 years in four different soviet cities (Kharkiv, Kiev, Moscow and Odessa) it’s narrative is centered around it being one singular day in the life. This 68 minute film has ignited my interest in this type of avant-garde documentary making, which I feel like will inspire more of my work going into the future.