There are some incredibly powerful visuals to be found throughout this Soviet paen to the doomed Communard uprising of 1871 in Paris. From its wildly expressionistic opening to the hardened and doomed faces right off of Soviet worker poster art it powerfully conveys its admiration for the heroic underclass while eviscerating the craven bourgeois. With a music score supplied by Shostakovich its an excellent example of the decade old Soviet Union trying to spread its influence by comrading up with the French of yesteryear.
Devine decadence rules in Paris with its attention to materialism and coarse joie de vivre. The haves are enjoying a grand time while the have nots struggle to survive. When the Prussians march on the city the uppercrusts bolt for Versailles, leaving the beleaguered city's defense to the workers to defend. With the threat dissipated the workers demand more rights, the bourgeois see it otherwise by turning the military on them. A stand-off ensues and a civil war erupts.
Babylon's revolutionary fervor was certainly right for the period with it being released a month after the Stock Market Crash in 1929. Emboldened with Eisenstein montage it shouts out its message with a ham fisted juxtaposition and simplicity that may have stirred the proles in 1917 but comes across dated here with the upper class caricatures no different than Griffith's Union troops in black face in his Civil War whitewash. Both remain triumphs of form over content (racism, totalitarianism) that should be be relegated to the dustbin of history,