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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
May have been Eisenstein's best film, 27 April 2001
Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

You can find the reconstruction of this film on the Criterion released Alexander Nevsky DVD. The photography is absolutely amazing, and, although the story is a bit confusing in the reconstruction, the mood is preserved fiercely by the photography and the added music (by Prokofiev, Eisenstein's later collaborator). Around 25 minutes long, even this reconstruction proves to be a masterpiece. Too bad we don't have a whole.

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what never was is lost; what survives is absolutely mesmerizing, 30 November 2003
Author: Kieran Kenney from California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Possible spoilers.

This remarkable work could have been Eisenstein's crowning

entry into film history. Though the footage no longer survives, what

remains (the still frames that were edited together in the sixties)

mark it as a breathtaking visual experience. Eisenstein's mastery

as a filmmaker shows; every scene is a articulately composed

tableau. His casting is as up-to-par as ever, bringing to us the

faces of real people, non-actors who weren't in anything else ever

again. And the irony of the church destruction scene is gorgeous.

Villagers dismantle the icons and decorations, thus becoming part

of the decor themselves. There's even a scene where the leader

of the group - who is also amazingly sexy - breaks down the alter

area with his own strength, thus recreating the whole story of

Samson. The boys higher up must have sensed this and therefore shut the production down. That they did was a huge

loss, for the film was never seen. Ever. What survives merely

scratches the surface.

Sergei Eisenstein was walking a thin line when it came to making

his films. The veil that he pulled over on the censors were thin.

On the surface, they come across as visually astounding

propaganda. When examined a little more carefully, though, they

seem to harbor more questionable messages. Like I said, the

scene where the villagers destroy the church. Sergei also had a

penchant for casting the most disgustingly beautiful men in all of

the USSR. They're in Potemkin, October, Strike and, yes,

especially in this film. They come across as good actors, though,

not just window dressing. In fact, he makes good use of them as

symbols of the communists, the young, revitalized lifeblood that

stands up against and defeats the old regime, played by character

actors that are either grotesquely overweight or grotesquely old.

The scene on the chapel steps in this film is a good example of

this.

Forget the Battleship movie. This is Eisenstein's crowning

achievement. What is with us now is a tantalizing suggestion of

what might have been.

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A tragic loss, 20 February 2000
7/10
Author: dmw26 from New Haven, CT

This retelling of a classic Communist, collectivist tale is one of the greatest losses to Communism the cinematic world has felt. Destroyed by the Soviets along with several other banned films, restoration artists were able to, more or less successfully, piece the story together again, from the damaged original negative, as a series of stills and a rehashed set of intertitles. The dynamism that must have accompanied the moving images of this film has, unfortunately been lost, but the stills themselves are fantastic, and a great tribute to Eisenstein's art.

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0 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
I agree with the other user comment I have read on this film:May have been Eisenstein´s best film!!, 12 January 2002
Author: anton-6 from sweden

I saw the reconstruction of this film on the Criterion Collection dvd set Eisenstein: The sound years.The photography is fantastic and I think it would have been a masterpiece but it was destroyed.It could be a bit confusing to follow the story in the reconstruction(it´s something about 30 minutes long)but it´s still very interesting.

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