2001-2010 Documentary France Nicolas Rey Politics

Nicolas Rey – Les soviets plus l’électricité (2002) (DVD)

adminFebruary 27, 2020

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This art-film is an imaginary documentary film about a man who sets off from Paris to Siberia in search of his father’s past: His father was a communist who had voluntarily gone from France to the Soviet Union to work on a big engineering project in Magadan. Now his adult son travels by train from Paris, through the Ukraine into the depths of Russia, in search of the values and ideas that had been so relevant to his father. The title of the film alludes to Lenin’s definition of communism: communism equals Soviets plus electricity. (Soviets are councils).

The movie is a collage of sounds and images, a conceptual salad of emotions and perceptions during this trip: Conversations are followed by a voice reading Lenin’s works, pictures of Ukrainian peasants enjoying an eclipse, and classic images of Eastern European train travel are all part of the film. This movie was supposedly filmed on Soviet film rolls, which is why the color is slightly reddish – the films had been stored in a fridge somewhere in the Former Soviet Union for several years until the director decided to use them.

This film is most enjoyable if you have had some previous experience traveling in Eastern Europe, and/or if you like conceptual art. This film is not recommendable for those who prefer straightforward narrative and a clear plot. I personally enjoyed this film very much, I think it is a remarkable artistic experiment. (IMDB)