ALEXANDER NEVSKY (Aleksandr Nevskiy) (1938) - ♦♦♦♦♦

Directed by - Sergei Eisenstein

Written by - Sergey Eisenstein, Pyotr Pavlenko

Starring - Nikolai Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov

"ALEXANDER NEVSKY was released at a time when the Soviet filmmaker had been unable to complete a picture for a decade. To make sure he would, convinced he was the right man for the job, the Soviet government sent a delegation to see his feature completed. The trend was changed, and today ALEXANDER NEVSKY is praised as one EISENSTEIN's greatest works. 

But first, a little backdrop on the intense political times in which the film was shot. Simply put, it was made around the second World War, when relations in the Nazi-Soviet Pact were increasingly intense, and war between the two countries would be imminent. So, the purpose of the film was to inspire the people in an uprise against Germany by resurrecting the feelings of hatred with the Germans from the history of war. 

ALEXANDER NEVSKY was a prince in the 13th century who led a ragtag army to battle against the invading forces of Teutonic Knights. The film is split into two parts, the set up to the battle and the battle itself. Both are shown with great precision and in his "collectivist" style, EISENSTEIN is just as intertested in the titular freedom as he is of the bit parts and members of his batallion. 

The portrayal in its simplicity was extremely influential. For instance, BRAVEHEART by MEL GIBSON had the same ideas when, instead of portraying the Scottish battallion as glorious and valiant knights, he showed them as rugged and innocent in their ignorance, yet absolutely driven by their cause, which they carried out with great courage and determination. 

But even in the spectacular battle itself, there is a certain romanticism of poetry that is legitimately passionate, due not only to the unmistakable role of the Germans as the evil tyrants that must be stopped and the celebration of the Russians whose glory for their efforts would be eternal in their victory, but also due to EISENSTEIN's incredible ability to intensify more personal motives and personalities of the men on the battleground in with a limited time. 

The visual language of the film is translated to the screen by long time collaborator of the filmmaker, cinematographer EDUARD TISSE, and every shot of the second half might as well have been taken to be a propagandist manifesto of its time. The striking humanity of the film represents the story and the concept of balance as much as it, of course, represents Soviet political ideas, which is also why EISENSTEIN and Communism walk hand in hand even in retrospective writings about his works. 

Here, however, such everything is even more direct. A pure work for the proletariat. It is not only the symbolism of the authorities that are portrayed as humble and flawed, and put on the same level of representation as the working class itself. It is also the artistry and metaphorical embellishments, a previous key element in the work of EISENSTEIN, that seems to bow down to its needs, in a stunning simplification that is every bit as powerful as a piece of propagandistic beauty should be, in both intent and spectacle. Frightening as it may be in propagandist temds, that is also why many other films that followed it, even ones that had no political relevance at all, owe so much to ALEXANDER NEVSKY."

War, Soviet Union