Underplayed Gems

Enthusiasm (1930)

Enthusiasm poster
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
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

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)

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.