Stride, Soviet (1926)

Run Time - 65 min.  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Brian Whitener

After his Kino-Eye--Life Caught Unawares was awarded a silver medal at the World Exhibition in Paris, Dziga Vertov was commissioned by the Soviet government to make two documentaries, of which Stride, Soviet was the first. Stride, Soviet is Vertov's documentary exploration of the various layers of Moscow society on the ten-year anniversary of the Revolution. The film reveals the continuing class-based nature of Soviet society through a series of montages of city life. The film is very critical of Soviet society, revealing deplorable discrepancies in the quality of lives in Moscow. It doesn't register this as a criticism, however, rather these conditions occasion the film's optimistic, exhortatory title. Cinematically, the film continues Vertov's investigation of the documentary form begun in Kino-Eye. Formally, however, this work is closer to the newsreel genre than to Vertov's later, more radical films.