In the Name of Lenin: A dusty, intense look at the past

Is it worth the watch?

If you like old documentaries that feel like they might break the projector, yeah, maybe. If you’re looking for a plot or a nice weekend movie to chill with, look elsewhere. You will probably hate this if you need music or a narrator to tell you how to feel every two minutes. It’s dry. It’s grey. It’s heavy.

There’s this moment where a group of workers are just standing there, staring at a giant statue of Lenin. The camera holds on them for what feels like an eternity. I started wondering if they were actually waiting for something or if the director just forgot to yell cut.

It’s not as slick as The Smoke Scream, which at least had some kinetic energy to it. This one is more like watching a giant clockwork machine grind its gears in the snow. Honestly, it's exhausting.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of In the Name of Lenin (1932) through its definitive frames.

Small observations from the chair

• The sound of the film projector buzzing in the background of my own room made it feel like a haunting.
• Some of the faces in the crowd look genuinely confused about why a camera is shoved in their direction.
• There is a lot of dirt on the lens in the second act. It’s kind of nice, actually. Keeps you grounded.
• I kept thinking about The Keys to Happiness because it’s just as bleak, but in a totally different way.

Slutsky clearly wants you to be impressed by the size of the industry. The machines are huge. The factories look like they could swallow a city block. But the people? They look like ants. Tiny, tired ants.

The pacing is… well, it’s not really pacing. It’s more like a slow, steady stream of images. Sometimes it hits a rhythm that feels almost poetic, then it just drops off a cliff into pure boredom. I found myself checking my phone, then looking back up and realizing I hadn't missed a single thing.

It reminds me a bit of the mood in The Night Court, even though they are worlds apart. There's a shared sense of being trapped by systems you can't control. Just here, the system is a government and a giant stone face instead of a courtroom.

I don't think this movie wants to be liked. It wants to be seen. It wants to be recorded. It’s a relic, and it acts like one. 🎞️