ART HOUSE FILMS
Ten years ago, I bought Essential Art House, 50 Years of Janus Films.
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A while back, I bought a collector’s edition of 50 art house films. I picked a few to watch. I kept the set, which I recently unearthed during a sorting sortie. Now I am watching the films in the sequence they were presented in the collection. First up was a 1938 film called Alexander Nevsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasiliev. There were English subtitles. Sometimes, I didn’t need the subtitles much! The faces, the body language, and the music said it all.
This film is about an armed conflict between Russians and Germans. It takes place near, on, and in a river. The Russians were the “good guys.” Of interest: there were some women warriors, too! They wore long braids, which hung down beside their helmets. I kept track of the two main forces by their costumes — white on the invading Germans; dark mesh mail on the Russians. The stirring score (Sergei Prokofiev) left no doubt of when the action was taking place, how it was going, and when a brief romantic interlude had been added to the plot.
The line that I remembered long enough to write down: “The strength of a sword is measured by the arm that wields it.”
