Arsenal

At the end of the First World War the front in Ukraine has collapsed. A soldier, Tymish, survives a train crash and returns to Kyiv. In the city the nationalists of the Central Rada face the Bolsheviks. Workers rise at the Arsenal factory and the rising is put down. The film covers that suppression and the collapse before it: empty fields, trains that do not run, hunger, and men returning from war who belong nowhere. Oleksandr Dovzhenko's film is among the most poetic works of Soviet montage cinema. The narrative does not proceed linearly; the link between passages is made through image rather than logic. The opening village sequence and the ending are among the most cited images of Soviet silent film. The film is openly on the Bolshevik side and presents Ukrainian nationalism negatively, which is an aspect argued over today. Who it's for: Viewers who like Soviet silent cinema, montage theory, and poetic narrative. Who it's not for: The narrative is hard to follow and requires historical context. The political frame is also one-sided.