1928: Oktyabr (Ten Days That Shook the World)

The Eisenstein film about the Russian Revolution, which I saw in a GDR version with German intertitles, Shostakovich's music and added sound effects, is interesting in that a certain interpretation of history affects the way the story is told at a very basic level: Unusually, here are practically no individual characters of relevance, which makes sense if you believe that there is no such thing as individuals, only classes with interests that fight each other. The film suffers from this, but makes up for it by being visually excellent. (7.5)