The greatest silent movies are generally free of any propaganda.Such is not the case with "Odna" which was recently restored with a complete soundtrack .The last pictures are a paean to socialism which "everybody has got to build" in a country where we all stand together .And if the message is not clear enough the loudspeakers keep on repeating;"What did I do? (for my country ;JF Kennedy said the same by the way)What am I doing? What will I do?)" When the schoolteacher asks not to be sent to Siberia ,we never see the person she's speaking to.When she finally agrees to leave for this lost village ,we do not even see her kiss her fiancé good bye!The individual's sacrifice indeed!
The soundtrack is weird.Sometimes,the words are sung,which makes the movie look like a musicals,some lines are spoken,a curious hodgepodge. Besides a big part of the movie is lacking,probably lost forever ,and the scenes when the schoolteacher is lost in the cold are replaced by lines which tell the missing passage.
All in all,I think this movie is rather cold,in every sense of the world,in spite of a promising start.
The soundtrack is weird.Sometimes,the words are sung,which makes the movie look like a musicals,some lines are spoken,a curious hodgepodge. Besides a big part of the movie is lacking,probably lost forever ,and the scenes when the schoolteacher is lost in the cold are replaced by lines which tell the missing passage.
All in all,I think this movie is rather cold,in every sense of the world,in spite of a promising start.