maybe i'm being naive and this is propaganda, but these look like the happiest, tannest, most fit commies i've ever seen. it looks like communism worked - for awhile at least. maybe it was just a lot better than what they had before.
Maybe that's because your image of "commies" is formed by US propaganda. (just guessing) As non-USian I can tell you that the way that US media used to tell about Communist countries isn't much different from what USSR told it's people about the Capitalists.
Both are propaganda and so is this film, even if very well made. Basically it shows good aspects of life in rapidly industrializing early USSR cities. It's shows sportsmen/women and people having fun in their freetime. That's real and maybe it suprises you, but people have fun everywhere in world. Communist, capitalist, fascist or democratic society, people are just people.
The world isn't simple black and white as propaganda makes it look like. In the reality of this very same "Soviet workers paradise" that you see on the film people were also deported to Siberia and killed due to their ethnic background or differing political views. People were dragged from their homes, put on fake trial and shot for pretty much no other reason than to cause terror and solidify Stalin's personal power.
It's not like everyone in US is gloomy either. They have Guantanamo, CIA secret prisons across the world, assasinations, death penalty, torture, etc, but still lots of people are "happiest, tannest, most fit capitalists and it looks like capitalism worked - for awhile at least" ;) I'm not saying that those - IMO barbaric - things that US govt. does today are anywhere near tragedy caused by Stalin, they are not, Stalin was far worse. But you get the picture, the world isn't all black and white.
I know but they have suntans!
shareDon't forget that this was made in the early years of the Soviet Union when things still looked promising. Its decline came under Stalin.
share"Its decline came under Stalin".
Not in terms of industrial prowess, it didn´t - quite the contrary, in fact. And what was there to decline from, exactly? The chaos and misery on the heels of WW1, revolution and a long, viscious civil war? The country was in complete ruins when Stalin took over.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
First of all, yes, it is technically propaganda, as was pretty much all art made in the USSR at the time. Secondly, this was pretty much the USSR at the peak of the early days. They were several years removed from WWI and the Civil War, but it was before the end of the NEP and the forced collectivization of farms in the 1930's that lead to what was at the time the most deadly man-made famine in the history of the world (it would only later be surpassed by the Chinese during The Great Leap Forward). Thirdly, I think the film is actually more cynical about the USSR than some people think, especially with the constant visual comparison of people with machines. I know this was a big part of Soviet art, but it felt more fatalistic than like some kind of attempt to glorify the workers, especially during the birth/marriage/divorce/death sequence intercut with footage of industrial machines. I've heard about this being "controversial" within the USSR when it came out, so that may be why.
Either way, this is a endlessly interesting, supremely well made movie that is one of my favorites and should be seen by more people.