Alone

The talented Grigory Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, whose experimental Factory of the Eccentric Actor yielded some major Russian silent features (The Overcoat, New Babylon), try their hand at sound with this 1931 drama about a young teacher in Leningrad (Elena Kuzmina) who’s foolishly assigned to teach in a Siberian village on the eve of her wedding. The film’s most interesting aspects are its Shostakovich score and its criticism of the Soviet bureaucracy, which was still possible at the time. Originally shot as a silent picture, it’s rather static and clunky compared to Kozintsev and Trauberg’s earlier efforts, in part because what’s going on in the city government is more importantthough less visiblethan the heroine’s travails. 80 min. In Russian with subtitles. (JR)

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