Alexander Nevsky (1938)
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Alexander Nevsky Movie Review
Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 Soviet historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It is a flawed, but visually arresting cinematic experience.
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“We have a saying: it’s better to die than to leave your homeland“
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Alexander Nevsky, a Russian prince, leads an army and wages war against the Teutonic Knights, who attempt to invade and conquer the city of Pskov. This movie came out at a time when Nazi Germany posed serious threat to the entirety of Europe. The film, thus, contains a very obvious anti-Nazi sentiment. It also has some obvious Communist themes that were unavoidable in Russian cinema of this period.
With all that being said, the movie is very strong and still highly engaging to this day. It is historically mostly quite accurate while being a great history lesson that is also involving and epic in its scope. The characters are underdeveloped, but they don’t matter too much in a movie like this where it is all about the technicalities and those are just stunning.
Sergei Eisenstein is a renowned Soviet director for a reason – he is a master storyteller and his movies have so much power in their visuals. Alexander Nevsky is no exception. This is a film that is truly astonishing and ahead of its time in the area of cinematography in particular. The way the camera moves and captures each moment was incredible and some sequences are just beautiful to behold.
The production design is fantastic, the costumes are very memorable and the whole movie is striking in its look and feel. The score is also grandiose and perfectly sweeping at times. As an audio-visual spectacle, the movie is a must see for cinephiles.
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The dialogue is pretty good, though the film is obviously overly patriotic, which was typical for this era. The acting is excellent, though, and the same should be said for the editing, especially the scene transitions that are both smooth and sophisticated. The film is actually surprisingly engaging to watch. I just wished it had more sophistication in its plot and that it had better character development.
