Sergei Loznitsa @ Anthology.

By David Hudson on 05/13/2009

"Anthology Film Archives' Sergei Loznitsa series concentrates on the Russian filmmaker's compilation documentaries," writes Vadim Rizov in the Voice. "His 2008's 'Revue' - toplining for a week - is surely the greatest compendium of Soviet kitsch since 1997's 'East Side Story.'"

"By turns droll, dismaying, poetic and quaint, 'Revue' melds disparate images of Soviet life during the 1950s and 60s into a luminous time capsule of patriotic fervor and political fealty," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "'Revue' is at its most chilling in the dissonance between public message and private experience."

"The sources' black-and-white visuals, from steel-pouring montages to close-ups of iconic working-class faces smudged by grease or beaming at poetry in the factory break room, shine as if spiffily restored, and Loznitsa's Dolbyization of what seems to be the original films' seamless sound editing - horse whinnys, footfalls in snow, the laughter of laborers - further adds to the sheen of the USSR's best-boot-forward image making," writes Bill Weber in Slant.

"'Blockade,' his 2005 examination of the siege on Leningrad, doesn't barrage you with battle scenes," notes David Fear in Time Out New York; "instead, we get eerie moments of calm as people walk down snowy streets littered with corpses and tanks roll off into the distance. All of which makes a final, abrupt shot of traitors being hanged that much more gut-wrenching. Compared with that city symphony of the damned, Loznitsa's 2008 'Revue' seems tamer, but its aims are far more subversive."

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[Photo: "Revue," Icarus Films, 2008]

Tags: Russian Cinema, Sergei Loznitsa