Underplayed Gems

The New Babylon (1929)

The New Babylon poster
Original title
Новый Вавилон
Directed by
Leonid Trauberg, Grigori Kozintsev
Genre
drama film, silent film, war film, historical film
Country
Soviet Union
Runtime
1h 20m
Rating
6.1 of 10 from 26 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

A silent film about the 1871 Paris Commune and the events that led to it. It follows two lovers who are separated by the fighting.

tragichistoricalfast-pacedsweepingbleakpassionateurgentdramatic

What happens

The New Babylon (Russian: Новый Вавилон, romanized: Novyy Vavilon alt. title: Russian: Штурм неба, romanized: Shturm neba) is a 1929 silent historical drama film written and directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. The film deals with the 1871 Paris Commune and the events leading to it, and follows the encounter and tragic fate of two lovers separated by the barricades of the Commune. Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first film score for this movie, hurriedly writing about 90 minutes of music. In the fifth reel of the score he quotes the revolutionary anthem, "La Marseillaise" (representing the Commune), juxtaposed contrapuntally with the famous "Can-can" from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. Footage from The New Babylon was included in Guy Debord's feature film The Society of the Spectacle (1973). Kozintsev and Trauberg found some of their inspiration in Karl Marx's The Civil War in France and The Class Struggle in France, 1848–50. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.