Sexylocher Masterful Movie

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Martin Bradley Hardly subtle. Eisenstein made this glorious piece of propaganda primarily as a warning to Hitler and the Nazis. It's about a time in the 13th century when Russia famously defeated the invading Germans under the leadership of Alexander NEVSKY, and there's no doubt as to just how evil these Germans are; at one point we see them throwing babies on the fire, (and in keeping with good Communist propaganda the Germans are the Christians forever flaunting their crucifixes). There's really nothing in the film except the call to arms and the battle that followed, (and its immediate aftermath), but what a battle it is, perhaps the finest and most famous ever put on film, (just as Prokofiev's accompanying score is among the finest ever composed for for a movie). There are images here as fine as any put on film and what other director handled crowd scenes in the way that Eisenstein did. It's not all perfect, of course. The dialogue is clunkier than the armor and the performances more wooden than the shields but primarily this is a visual epic and, as such, it's one of the classics of Russian cinema.

felixoteiza Alexander Nevsky is not a bad film by any means, but not a very good one either; rather a mixed bag of good and bad, resulting from different forces and influences that were pulling Eisenstein in all directions at the time. A pretty uneven film I said; the writing at times is terrible--some lines seem to have been written by Stalin himself--and even the cinematography suffers, specially at the beginning, when everyone talks to the camera instead of to each other. At a finished product, it suggests that at the time E. not only had not retaken full contact with his Russian roots but also that someone was looking over his shoulder, vehemently prodding him into the politically correct direction. But most of all AN shows that his North American experience had yet to sink in and turn into an artistically profitable source of inspiration.The two initial scenes show us what is wrong with AN. The confrontation with the Mongols is badly set; it lacks any atmosphere, which is made even worse by the festive behavior of the Asian. Instead of taking Alex hostage after riddling his men with arrows--as any self-respecting Mongol warlord would have done—he falls in instant adoration of the Russian prince, as any teenage girl faced to Brad Pitt. The scene is badly written, which suggests not only that Eisenstein had still to mature his North American experience, separate the wheat from the chaff, but also that an agenda was at work there, one that certainly was not his. I have nothing against propaganda films--most war flicks are so, after all--but I'd appreciate a little bit of subtlety. After Alex has repeated a thousand times that "German dogs won't be allowed to trample Mother Russia" it becomes rather tiresome. This indicates some clear meddling in the director's work, which it's even more flagrant in the scene when Alex leans over his pal Domash after the forest ambush. He clenches his fist, the camera closes up on his resolute eyes, demeanor, typical Eisenstein set up and then...he ruins the whole scene by blurting out, yet again! the blasted line. I can picture Stalin himself adding that line there. It's clear also that the initial scene was put there solely to display Alex's character, his John Wayne-like poise & assurance, one of the (bad) things Eisenstein brought home from Hollywood, which was clearly compounded by Stalin's insistence in presenting him in such a light. That's why the initial scene is bad, as Stalin wanted Alex set from the beginning as an all mighty superhero hovering above humans and their frailties. No wonder we don't come to feel for him. That's also why powerful, self assured, heroes take all the tension from a flick: either we don't relate to them, we don't feel for them or we know from the start that nothing bad will happen to them anyway. That's something that bogs down AN for its duration. We never feel for Alex, Stalin already did it for us.But there are other flaws, plot holes, apart from the intriguing gaiety of the Mongol chief. For ex. Anani is treated by everyone like trash, kicked around like a dirty sock, called "treacherous, lying, dog"...yet nobody bother to keep tabs on him. Also, the Germans throw to the flames even babies, suggesting they fear their future revenge, yet they merrily let go Vasilisa, unmolested, even after her father had swore her to exact revenge. We see her next in Novgorod happily readying herself for battle. How did she do all that?.This is a very disjointed film, obvious proof of a director venturing into foreign land, figuratively & literally. I already referred to the propaganda elements E. had to incorporate in Alex's character, which forces humane frailties, weaknesses, to drift towards secondary ones. The problem is here he displays another tool he may have brought from Hollywood, but that doesn't suit him well: The comic relief, Gavrilo, a character that more confounds than appeals. He begins in the trappings of a jester and ends up as an heroic knight. I never believed this character, anyway, his Papageno-like humor; his nonchalance even in the midst of a bloody battle. It just didn't look real to me. The same with the proverb--spurting master armorer; his humor falls also flat. Comedy is not Eisenstein's strong suit, neither the light hearted chat of the kind we see between the three men at the beginning and that of Gavrilo and the two women at the end. Most of the scenes between the three, or rather four, specially concerning romance, looked contrived, staged. It's only when real action starts that the movie really picks up.But Eisenstein also brought something good from Hollywood, above all a great sense of spectacle. He dares to stage a battle on the immensity of a frozen like, on a nearby forest. I haven't watched Birth of a Nation but I've seen some clips and the scene battles here-—mainly the charges of cavalry—look as if taken from that movie. But AN goes beyond that, setting the standards for the movie battles of the future. The scene of the Roman legions marching on the hillside, in Spartacus, was clearly inspired by the charge of the Teutonic knights. Only that deserves an extra .5 pt.Despite its flaws still worth watching, mainly for its grandiose battle scenes (and the sad aftermath of death and tears) and a great Prokofieff score. But most of all a pretty entertaining movie. In all 7.5/10.

dromasca Great directors must be judged not only by their masterpieces but also by their failures. When talking about Eisenstein 'Alexandr Nevskiy' is such a failure, but it's not easy to judge Eisenstein upon it, as it is so obvious that most of the failure of this film do not belong to him.'AN' is a piece of anti-German propaganda made in 1938 on the eve of the second world war and of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. To make points clear the authors fill in the film with such ridiculous details as having the 13th century Teutonic soldiers wear Wehrmacht-like helmets or the 20th century German effigy painted on the Teutonic flags. The conflict is extremely schematic and stereotype and it takes the full power of such a great actor as Nikolai Tschekasov was to give some life to the main character, while most if not all the other characters fall into ridicule or close.Yet, there are glimpses of great cinema in this film. The battle scene while not reaching the heights of the mass scenes in 'Potemkin' is well conceived and orchestrated, and the rendition of the German leaders has hypnotic power, with the Dark Monk figure looking like a cinematic father of Bergman's death angel and grandfather of Darth Vader. Best of all is the combination between Eisenstein's visuals and Prokofiev's musical score. Actually music is so good while text is so bad that I believe that it would have been much better if the whole text was sung rather than spoken - it would have been the first or one of the first filmed operas in history, not a forgettable propaganda film in the career of an extraordinary director.

jerrylb It is important to realise that Eisenstein was a committed Marxist film maker who held some very specific and particular theories about what film could achieve, and how.It is simply idle to compare Alexander Nevsky negatively with anything from a similar period in the US; this film comes from the oldest film school in the world, from another continent, from an entirely different approach to cinema.To appreciate this film a little more, try finding out about Pudovkin's and Kuleshov's theories of montage, for example, or read the Wikipedia entry on Marxist Film Theory. If you're feeling really bold, you might even investigate the triadic forms of Hegelian dialectic.It follows that if you watch this film without some understanding of Eisenstein's ideas and ideals, you probably won't get it. In Alexander Nevsky the main characters aren't playing themselves, they are meant to be distillations of their nation's character. Nevsky and his generals are deliberately shown larger-than-life, because they represent stylised, heroic aspects of the entire Russian people.The acting isn't wooden, it's meant to be slightly mannered. It represents a completely different school from the more naturalistic, narrative style which Hollywood was rapidly adopting. Eisenstein's films are especially designed *not* to be realistic. If anything seems somewhat "obvious", whether lighting or language or a pose struck by an actor, it's meant to be that way. Eisenstein was one of the early proponents of film as an art form, not just as entertainment.If the editing sometimes seems to consist of a clash of images, well, that's the idea. Shots are meant to contrast with each other, Eisenstein's films contain and embody elements of a political/philosophical argument, namely Marxist dialectic.So sit back, shout hurrah for Russia and her folk-hero defenders, boo at the cowardly nobles and the Teuton invaders, and enjoy the difference.