Director Alexander Dovzhenko the trailblazing icon of soviet cinema was originally commissioned to produce an epic film to celebrate the glories of the 1918 Bolshevik worker's revolution. Arsenal (1929) based on the real-life events of the Ukrainian Civil War turned out to be anything but an exercise in propaganda filmmaking. Set in the bleak aftermath and devastation of the 'Great War' (WWI) a recently de-mobbed soldier Timosh returns to his hometown Kiev after having survived a train wreck. His arrival coincides with a national celebration of Ukrainian freedom but... the festivities are not to last as a disenchanted Timosh soon begins to clash with the city's authorities when he starts to agitate for the adoption of the soviet system. The unrest eventually comes to a violent head when outnumbered and holed-up in a munitions depot where he used to work Timosh and other Bolshevik troops defend their besieged city from the advancing nationalist White Army. Dovzhenko tempered his stark take on this pivotal war with touches of comedy and national myth while treating his portrayal of the passions evoked on both sides with a certain level of ambiguity which was to displease his partisan paymasters. Arsenal features some of the earliest usage of the fast-editing approach; which injects the film with a level of excitement new to movie-goers of the time. The director's unrivalled skills as a filmmaker were to remain unmatched for decades; and his use of vignettes grandiose imagery and intimate mood pieces set a template which continues to influence generations of moviemakers. [show more]
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Aleksandr Dovzhenko writes, directs and produces this silent war drama, made in 1929. Just after World War I, soldier Timosh (Semyon Svashenko), having been released from the army, makes his way back home to Kiev, where a ceremony marking Ukraine's freedom is underway. Timosh and his fellow Bolshevik soldiers revolt against the authorities and end up at a munitions base, preparing to fight for their city against the approaching nationalist White Army.
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