Enthusiasm. Symphony of Donbas

Dziga Vertov's 1930 film was his first with sound and is among the most radical sound experiments of the Soviet avant-garde. The industry, agriculture and culture of the Donbas region are recorded during the first Five Year Plan, with anti-religious campaigns, propaganda marches and the athletic culture of the time forming its content. Vertov and his team went into the field with portable recording equipment and captured factory sound directly. Its real innovation is that real industrial and everyday sounds stop being an accompaniment to the image and are used to build a musical structure. Charlie Chaplin wrote of it that he would never have believed such beauty could be assembled from mechanical noise, and that Vertov was a musician. The content is open propaganda and needs to be watched knowing that. Who it's for: viewers interested in sound theory, the Soviet avant-garde and the history of documentary form. Who it's not for: anyone expecting an aesthetic experience separable from the propaganda, or not reckoning that the sound is harsh and abrasive.