Seule

Originally made as a silent film, Odna was released in 1931 as a 'sound' film – which differs from a talkie because although there are sound effects in the film, there is no synchronised dialogue and it was intended to be performed with an orchestral accompaniment using a score by Shostakovich. After it fell into political disfavour the film was archived in the Lenfilm complex, which was destroyed during the siege of Leningrad. Fortunately, although much of the score was lost, all but one 8-minute reel survived, as did the full score for the missing reel. Mark Fitz-Gerald and colleagues, with the encouragement of Shostakovich's widow, completed the restoration of the original score in 2003. It was first performed in the Netherlands and has also been performed in France, Switzerland and Germany. I attended the London Premiere on 10th February 2006.

Normally, a review relates to an experience that can be shared subsequently by any cinema-goer, or watcher of DVDs. A live concert performance (the BBC Symphony Orchesttra conducted by Mark Fitz-Gerald) is different. The entire orchestral performance and live sound effects such as the throat singer, Theramin and Harmonium will not be constant factors - which is why performances of great musical works are reviewed repeatedly. The performance I experienced may be different from what you experience. For me, what might have been a rather sentimental ending was transformed by the 'buzz' of the live musical climax (the entire restored score was performed, with titles explaining the action of the missing reel).

A notable feature of the film was the superb natural performance of the 'actors' (including a real shaman performing a real ritual) with none of the exaggerated eye makeup of 'Napoleon' and the German expressionists. Such a live performance converted a good propaganda film into something more sublime and an experience that should not be missed if the opportunity is repeated.

Odna (Alone) was not blacklisted but heavily criticized by the Soviet authorities. Much of the picture is not in favour with the politics of the first Five Year Plans. A young teacher (marvellously played by Yelena Kuzmina) is eager to build up a life of her own, happily united with her husband (Pyotr Sobolevsky, incidentally Kuzmina's real life husband). However the Ministry of Education (the official reminiscent of Lenin's widow Krupskaya) sends her off to the Altai Mountains in Russian Mongolia, to provide basic education for the youngest children of the Altai shepherds. Once in the desolate frozen mountain area she begins building a school. The male population particularly is against it. All Kuzmina's attempts to educate the children are obstructed and the local soviet leader is a lazy corrupt burocrate! Kuzmina is abducted and left alone in the snow far from the little village. She is rescued by a little plane and brought back to her beloved Leningrad, promising the children that she will return to do her job. Odna was designed as a silent film. When it was about to be released sound film was introduced in the USSR. Shostakovich wrote a dazzling score for Odna, which also received some lines of dialogue. The picture is based on contrasts: between the safe haven of modern Leningrad, and life in the middle of a frozen nowhere. Between education and the poverty of non-education. Between progress and medieval backwardness. The drama was inspired by a small newspaper article about a young woman in the middle of nowhere being rescued by an air-plane crew.

I was bemused reading the previous comment. I recently saw a 2003 restoration of this film which ran 90 minutes, not the 80 minutes listed in the combined details. However apparently the sixth reel is lost and the action is delineated by intertitles on a black screen -- this includes the heroine's rescue from the mountain (not by a plane -- that only appears at the very end of the film). I wonder how the previous reviewer could have seen the complete film or at least not mentioned that an important part of it is missing. Despite the obvious propaganda, the acting, particularly by Yelena Kuzmina, is first-rate.

The greatest silent movies are generally free of any propaganda.Such is not the case with "Odna" which was recently restored with a complete soundtrack .The last pictures are a paean to socialism which "everybody has got to build" in a country where we all stand together .And if the message is not clear enough the loudspeakers keep on repeating;"What did I do? (for my country ;JF Kennedy said the same by the way)What am I doing? What will I do?)" When the schoolteacher asks not to be sent to Siberia ,we never see the person she's speaking to.When she finally agrees to leave for this lost village ,we do not even see her kiss her fiancé good bye!The individual's sacrifice indeed!

The soundtrack is weird.Sometimes,the words are sung,which makes the movie look like a musicals,some lines are spoken,a curious hodgepodge. Besides a big part of the movie is lacking,probably lost forever ,and the scenes when the schoolteacher is lost in the cold are replaced by lines which tell the missing passage.

All in all,I think this movie is rather cold,in every sense of the world,in spite of a promising start.

Damen Kuzmina is a longhaired girl from the U.S.S.R. ( Ja… even in the Communist Country par excellence there is that kind of youngster ) who recently has graduated to become a school teacher; she lives in a big city and she is a modern girl. She wants to work at any school in her city, teaching to poor kids the glorious achievements of the Socialist regime, and while she explains the incredible and exciting Leninist life, or the successful potatoes' annual harvest ratings, she has planned to marry her fiancé, starting in this way a wonderful Bolshevist life. But in the U.S.S.R. there is no chance for a wonderful life and those dreams of hers suddenly are broken when she is posted to the far-away Altai region of Russian Mongolia…

In this Herr Kozintsev and Herr Trauberg's work are depicted the contradictions, the big differences between the city and the isolated towns of the vast U.S.S.R., the old and new ( as Herr Eisenstein said some years before ), Kuzmina's modern spirit full of initiative ( it's very interesting and even curious to watch in the film how Kuzmina rebels against the fact that she has been posted to such a far away place, even defying the authorities for their designation, a strange criticism in this film against the Soviet authorities, although finally that subject is solved by the young schoolteacher's patriotism, deciding her sacrifice takes priority over her suspicious individualism ) against the ancient customs of the Altai region, where Kuzmina will find selfishness, corruption and loneliness.

The main character of the film will also fight against the local soviet ( even the Bolshevist chiefs are fond of bribery… ), denouncing the injustices that are committed in the town, trying to open the villagers' eyes to such abuse of authority. This time Kuzmina rebels herself ( and the villagers ) against the people and ideas that don't make possible the building of a new socialist country -- communist propaganda, it's true, but very well exposed in the film.

"Odna" is a hybrid of silent film and talkie; Herr Shostakovich composed a score for the film, a synchronized film full of different sounds that stimulate the story, a film that is unfortunately missing a reel ( the episode in where Kuzmina is left to die in the vast Siberia ) which is compensated with explaining subtitles.

"Odna" is for many reasons not an easy or acquiescent film ( it was strongly criticized ); certainly it was impossible at that time to make a film in the U.S.S.R. questioning the communist regime; but a certain air of liberty, disobedience and non conformism flies over the film, achieving finally a singular film, a Russian oddity.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must rant about the virtues of the aristocratic regime.