Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

MartinHafer It's ironic that an atheist like Lenin is portrayed in such a manner as in "Tri Pesni O Lenine" ("Three Songs About Lenin"). While I a am no huge fan of Lenin, I did appreciate how he did NOT wish to be turned into a god after his death. However, Stalin orchestrated a campaign where exactly this happened in the decades following Lenin's early death. Posters, songs, documentaries and busts abounded--all to replace the religious icons that the Russians had held so dear as well as to give the seeming stamp of approval for Stalin's regime (after all, if Lenin was their new god, why couldn't Stalin be as well?). So film maker Dziga Vertov was given the task to create this film and sing Lenin's praises. I think this job was given to Vertov because he'd done such fine work espousing the glories of the new Soviet Union in the Kino series as well as "Man With a Camera"--he was a dedicated member of the Communist party and appeared to strongly believe in its ideals.As a film , "Three Songs About Lenin" leaves a lot be to desired. First, it's propaganda throughout and has no objectivity--and it's practically orgasmic in its descriptions of the man. Its aim is to create Stalin's idea of a good film for the people. Because of this, while it has some nice footage, the film itself comes off as tremendously jingoistic and lacking any real story other than "we all love the USSR and Comrade Lenin"--not exactly a deep sentiment! Everyone is deliriously happy and thanks Lenin for making their lives better (probably true, as Czarist Russia was no paradise and the mass executions of Stalin's regime were not yet known to much of the world--even within the new USSR).If my review comes off as very biased, you are correct. I am a history teacher and cannot ignore all the horrors of the Stalinist era--which left millions dead in order to 'purify' the country. Of course, the film is even more biased, as it presents nothing but a carefully-scripted view of a Utopia that never was. I just can't see the artistry of a film like this--and it comes off as a creepy historical document. And, speaking of creepy, get a load of all the closeups of the dead Lenin! Yikes!

netwallah Vertov eulogizes Lenin with an idealized view of Soviet progress. There are, indeed, three songs, or three musical movements. The first presents a woman's view of Lenin's legacy, beginning with the movement away from various forms of repression, the joy of women working, the new equality in field and factory. The second records the Soviet mourning for their leader. The third showcases progress, with the refrain if only Lenin could see his country now. With the exception of three or four spoken passages, this is built like a silent film to which a programmatic soundtrack has been added. There are actual songs, with titles furnishing the words, and sections of great music by Russian classical composers, and some music probably written for the film. The continuity comes through the songs and through several thematic sequences of images—there is no plot. The images are fascinating, showing the best side of Soviet culture, the variety of ethnicities, the joy of having enough to eat, the sense of sharing in a wonderful experiment, the determination to succeed, the unselfishness of many individuals, the idealism of the collective. There are thousands of shots of people, agriculture, industry, public works, parades, happy people, hardworking people, landscapes, and every sort of window into a vanished world. Of course it's propaganda. Of course there are essential elements of Soviet history omitted. Of course the very first sequences present the unveiling of Muslim women as a great stride toward liberty. Let the political scientists and historians investigate the significance of what is left out and what is presented in this partial view of life in the 1930s. But remember it was only sixteen years after the October revolution, and the progress the movie highlights did occur. Still, we don't have to accept the propagandistic aspect of the film. Neither do we have to reject the film out of hand because we think Communism is stupid, nor does it benefit anybody to heap ridicule upon it. Three Songs is a (partly) great movie because it shows irreplaceable real images of real people and of vanished technology and vanished historical places. Some of the photography is amazing, and the editing, timed rhythmically to match the music, is unusually good. Even the way the propagandistic themes are built is worth examining—we're all pretty much safe from its baleful influence these days.

Snow Leopard Despite the good imagery and photography, this Dziga Vertov feature, though often interesting, is in general rather a disappointment.There are many fine features from the Soviet cinema of the 1920s and 1930s, in which the skill of film-makers like Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, Vertov himself, and others far outweighs any small doses of politically-mandated content. It is unfortunate that some very elegant films of that era are often described as propaganda pieces, when they actually have far too much depth for that label to be appropriate. All this is simply to say how unfortunate it is to have to point out that, indeed, "Three Songs of Lenin" might have been much, much better without the heavy-handed propaganda statements with which it is laced.There's no reason in itself why a film praising Lenin could not still work as cinema, and indeed at least two of the three "songs" contain some worthwhile ideas. But the title cards and some of the dialogue simply go way too far in trying to build up Lenin's legacy, and it is not long before it gets to be too much. The lavish praises that the movie heaps upon him would be ridiculous even if they were being applied to Washington, Churchill, de Gaulle or any other world leader. No one leader deserves anything approaching that much credit for his country's successes, and no human leader or ruler deserves such unstinting and unqualified praise.Vertov was a skilled and creative film-maker, as he proved in pictures such as "Man With a Movie Camera". And even here, there is plenty of good photography and other material to work with. A more restrained approach would have resulted in a much better film. It's still of interest to those interested in the era, and it does have some definite strengths; it's just not nearly as good as you could have hoped for it to be.

BoYutz This 1931 'documentary', acclaimed in its day, is nothing more than a ham-fisted, banal, and unremarkably filmed piece of propaganda. The editing is jerky; the shots frequently undisciplined and poorly composed; the pace glacial; the script naive and stilted in its crass deification of Lenin. Oh yeah, it's dour and humorless, too.It might hold some interest as an early example of the 'tractors and dams' approach to agitprop, but it holds little interest on its own merits. It is worthwhile, however, to see Lenin threatening to defeat 'the landowners and capitalists' around the world!Keep an eye out for this in your film history class, and be ready for your indoctrination.