Korolyevskiye Matrosy: A strange, grainy bit of history

Is this worth your Tuesday night?

Honestly? Maybe not. Unless you’re the kind of person who gets a kick out of old-school, heavy-handed political dramas from the mid-20th century. If you’re looking for a breezy watch, stay away. If you like feeling like you’re doing homework while you eat dinner, you’ll probably find something to love here.

The whole thing centers on Clarence Smith, who goes from just another guy scrubbing the decks to a full-blown revolutionary. It plays out like a stage play that someone decided to film on a boat. There is a lot of shouting. A lot of intense staring at horizons.

I couldn't help but think about The Wrecker while watching this, though they couldn't be more different in tone. Where one is pure spectacle, Korolyevskiye matrosy feels like it wants to convince you of its own importance every single frame. It’s exhausting, really.

Odd bits and pieces

• The lighting in the galley scenes is bizarre. Half the time, I couldn't tell if it was noon or midnight.
• There’s a moment where a character pauses for, I swear, thirty seconds just to look meaningful. It was so long I actually checked if my stream had buffered.
• The uniforms look surprisingly crisp for a group of men supposedly living in such squalor.

The dialogue is thick. It doesn't move like real people talk; it moves like a manifesto that’s been chopped up and handed out to actors who were told to emote. You can almost see them sweating under the stage lights. It reminded me a bit of the heavy-handedness you sometimes see in Raza de hidalgos, where the message is always standing right in front of the actual story.

I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just... intense. It takes itself so incredibly seriously that you start to feel like you’re not allowed to blink. There’s a scene near the middle where the tension is supposed to be peaking, but the camera work is so static it felt like the ship was anchored in cement. ⚓

It lacks the weird, playful energy of something like Hurdy Gurdy, which at least knew how to have a bit of fun with its premise. Here, everything is grey, serious, and loud. If you’re into the history of the Invergordon Mutiny, you’ll be fine. If you’re just looking for a good movie? Maybe skip it.

Actually, the closing shot is kind of haunting. It stays on the empty deck for way longer than you’d expect, just letting the wind sound effect loop until it gets slightly annoying. It’s a weird choice. I kind of liked it.