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6.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Three Songs About Lenin remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like documentaries that act like music videos from 1934, then yeah, watch this. If you need a movie that holds your hand and explains exactly what is happening with dates and facts, you will probably hate it. It’s a bit like watching A Vida do Barão do Rio Branco if that movie was obsessed with tractors and heavy machinery.
Dziga Vertov wasn’t interested in being a journalist. He wanted to be a conductor of images. The whole thing is built around three folk songs, and the way he cuts between a woman working in a field and a massive steel press is just… wild. It feels like he’s trying to sync the heartbeat of the country to the beat of the music. Sometimes it works perfectly. Other times, it feels like a very loud, very frantic slide show.
There is this one shot of a spinning turbine that lasts way longer than it should. I caught myself counting the rotations until I got bored, but then the camera cut to a face in the crowd and the mood changed instantly. It’s that kind of movie. You stop paying attention, and then it slaps you back with a weirdly beautiful close-up.
Is it propaganda? Obviously. But it’s propaganda that feels like a collage project gone off the rails. It’s nowhere near the slow, character-driven stuff you see in something like As You Desire Me. This is all movement, all the time. It doesn't care about your feelings, it cares about the *rhythm* of the machine.
I don't know if this is 'good' cinema in the way we usually talk about it. It’s more of an experience. It reminded me a bit of how some of the more experimental moments in The Baby try to disorient you, though for very different reasons. It’s exhausting, honestly. You walk away feeling like you’ve been run through a factory assembly line yourself. But I’m glad I watched it. It’s strange, it’s loud, and it refuses to be boring.
