The Self-Seeker (1929) - A weirdly funny movie about a guy and a camel

You should definitely watch this if you enjoy movies where the main character is a total jerk but you can't stop watching him anyway. It's perfect for people who like dark comedies about surviving a war by being a sneaky liar. If you can't stand old silent movies with grainy film or reading title cards, you’ll probably hate it within ten minutes.

The story starts with Apollon Shmyguyev, who is basically a guy who loves his furniture more than his country. Kyiv is a mess because of the civil war, and he just wants to get out with his loot. Then, for some reason, a camel shows up at his house.

I still don't really get why there is a camel in the middle of Ukraine, but it's the best part of the movie. Apollon decides to pack his things on the camel and head south. It’s such a strange sight seeing a guy in a suit walking a camel through a war zone.

The movie gets really good when the Red Army stops him. They take the camel because they need it for the "revolution," which is a pretty funny excuse for theft. Apollon doesn't give up, though; he just pretends to be a loyal Bolshevik. He ends up running a local office and he is terrible at it because he’s only thinking about his own pocket.

S. Vlasenko plays Apollon with this great, nervous energy. His eyes are always moving, looking for a way to steal something or run away. It's a much more grounded performance than what you see in big epics like The Last Days of Pompeii. This feels small and dirty, like real life.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Self-Seeker (1929) through its definitive frames.

The pacing is a bit weird in the middle. There is a long sequence where he’s just sitting at a desk and it feels like the director forgot to tell him to move. But then something happens, like a bribe or a threat, and the energy kicks back up. The way the movie mocks the greedy "bourgeois" type is pretty sharp for 1929.

I liked how the movie didn't make the Red Army look like perfect heroes either. They mostly just look tired and annoyed by this guy. It's a lot more cynical than something like Cleopatra which is all about the spectacle. Here, it's just about a guy trying not to get shot while hiding a bag of money.

One shot of the camel looking bored while Apollon screams at people made me laugh out loud. The animal is a better actor than some of the extras in the background. You can see people in the distance who clearly didn't know they were being filmed. It gives the whole thing a raw, documentary feel that I didn't expect.

The ending is a bit rushed, like they ran out of film or time. Apollon’s greed finally catches up to him, but it happens so fast you might miss it if you blink. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a very weird, very human story about being a coward. 🐪

If you're bored of modern movies that feel too polished, this is a nice change of pace. It's messy and the film quality is pretty rough in spots. But it has a soul, which is more than I can say for most big studio stuff today.