Enthusiasm (1930)

Original title

Ентузіязм. Симфонія Донбасу

Directed by

Dziga Vertov

Genre

documentary film

Country

Soviet Union

Runtime

1h 07m

Rating

6.4 of 10 from 43 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This 1931 Soviet documentary captures life and labor in the Donbas mining region. It uses factory and machine sounds to create a symphony of industrial noise, with the music and images often overlapping in jarring ways.

experimentalavant-garderhythmicindustrialimmersivedisorientingboldabstractstark

What happens

Enthusiasm: The Symphony of Donbas (Russian: Энтузиазм: Симфония Донбасса, romanized: Enthusiasm: Symphony of Donbass, Ukrainian: Ентузіязм: Симфонія Донбасу or Entuziiazm: Symfoniia Donbasu), also referred to as Donbas Symphony or The Symphony of the Donbas Basin, is a 1931 sound film directed by Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov. The film was the director's first sound film and also the first of the Soviet production company Ukrainfilm. The film's score is considered experimental and avant-garde because of its incorporation of factory, industrial, and other machine sounds; human speech plays only a small role in the film's sounds. Vertov himself described Enthusiasm as "the lead icebreaker in the column of sound newsreels." He considered the film's "complex interaction of sound with image" to be the work's most significant achievement. The director viewed the film as an extended experiment in which the juxtaposition and misalignment of sound were completely intentional. The film is also notable for the fact that it is a documentary filmed on location. Like many of his other films, Vertov worked on Enthusiasm with his wife Elizaveta Svilova. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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