Okraina / Outskirts

Boris Barnet: Окраина / Okraina / Outskirts (SU 1933) starring Sergei Komarov (Greshin) and Yelena Kuzmina (Manka Greshina). Poster design: Israel Bogdan / Израиль Давидович Боград (1899—1938).

Окраина / Laitakaupunki / Hat och kärlek.
    SU 1933. PC: Mezhrabpomfilm.
    D: Boris Barnet. SC: Boris Barnet, Konstantin Finn. DP: Mihail Kirillov, A. Spiridonov - 1:1,2. M: Sergei Vasilenko.
    Starring Sergei Komarov (Greshin), Robert Erdman (Robert Karlovitsh), Jelena Kuzmina (Manka Greshina), Nikolai Bogoljubov (Nikolai Kadkin), Nikolai Krjutshkov (Senka Kadkin).
    99 min.
    The 1965 sonorized version.
    A Finnish Film Archive print with Finnish subtitles by Esa Adrian. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 8 May 2008.

An often beautiful definition of light, but there are switches to high contrast. Probably the whole soundtrack was remade in 1965?

The charming Boris Barnet masterpiece revisited. It starts in the year 1914, the backwater of Imperial Russia. This is the story of the shoemakers. The war breaks, there is high demand of boots. The viewpoint of the boots to the war (qf. the Finnish Pentti Haanpää's novel Yhdeksän miehen saappaat /The Boots for Nine Men). The film about love between human beings, war between states. Montages about the shoe industry, industry replacing the crafts. The small perspective to world history, including the revolution. Imagery of absurd humour.