Vzryv review: A very dusty, very angry piece of history

If you are looking for a fun time with popcorn, honestly, just skip this one. Vzryv is for the people who want to see what the bottom of a coal mine looked like in 1917 and how much it probably sucked to be there.

It is worth watching if you care about how movies used to show 'the struggle' before everything became so polished and fake. But if you hate slow, silent films where people spend ten minutes just looking miserable in the dark, you will absolutely hate this.

The first thing that hits you is the dirt. It feels like the actors didn't have to put on makeup because they were actually just covered in real coal dust for weeks.

There is this one guy, I think it was Dmitriy Fedorovskiy, who has these eyes that just look completely hollowed out by the work. He doesn't even have to do much 'acting' in the traditional sense; he just stands there and you get it.

The movie takes its sweet time showing the 'brutal exploitation' the summary talks about. Like, we see the workers going down, coming up, eating basically nothing, and then doing it again.

It starts to feel repetitive after a while, but I guess that is the point? The repetition is the exploitation. ⛏️

There is a scene with a boss or an overseer—I didn't catch the character's name—who is just standing there with this smug look on his face. The way the camera lingers on his clean clothes compared to the rags the miners are wearing is pretty heavy-handed.

It reminded me a little bit of the class stuff in Heir of the Ages, but way less polite. This movie isn't trying to be polite at all.

The lighting in the mine scenes is actually kind of impressive for how old this is. It is mostly pitch black with just enough light to see the sweat on their backs.

One shot goes on about 30 seconds too long where a group of men are just staring at a broken piece of equipment. You keep waiting for a title card to explain what they are thinking, but it never comes.

The silence in that moment felt more awkward than dramatic to me. I started looking at the grain on the film instead of the actors.

When the 'explosion' (the title means explosion, by the way) finally happens, it isn't like a modern action movie. It's messy and confusing.

The armed uprising part feels a bit rushed compared to the hour of suffering we had to sit through first. One minute they are coughing in the dark, and the next they are suddenly grabbing whatever they can find to fight back.

I noticed one of the extras in the back of a crowd scene just kind of looking around like he wasn't sure where to go. It made the whole 'organized' rebellion feel a bit more real, actually.

People don't just form perfect lines when they are angry; they just sort of swarm. 🎞️

I wonder if the director, Nikolay Lyadov, actually spent time in a mine or if he just told everyone to look as tired as possible. It works, though.

The pacing is definitely a bit weird. It feels like a movie that was edited by someone who was very sleepy or maybe just really liked the scenery of rubble.

If you liked the bleakness of Out of the Ruins, you might find something to appreciate here. But man, it is a heavy sit.

There is this strange sequence near the end where the editing gets really choppy. I couldn't tell if it was an artistic choice to show the chaos or if the film reel was just damaged over the last hundred years.

Either way, it made my head hurt a little bit.

It’s not a 'masterpiece' or anything like that. It’s just a very loud (even though it's silent) protest caught on film.

I found myself thinking about The Slaver while watching the boss characters. There is a certain way silent film villains sneer that just doesn't happen anymore.

It’s almost funny, but you feel bad laughing because the context is so grim.

The movie is mostly just a mood. A dark, dusty, angry mood that doesn't really have a 'ending' so much as it just stops.

I don't think I'd ever watch it again. Once is enough to get the point.

If you're doing a marathon of early Soviet-era stuff, sure, throw it on. Otherwise, you can probably just look at a picture of a coal mine and get the same feeling.

Also, the music in the version I saw was way too upbeat for what was happening on screen. It was very distracting.

Anyway, it’s an okay look at history. Just don't expect a tight plot or anything like that.