CHAPAYEV Movie Review
1934 Sergei Vassiliev, Georgy Vassiliev
If this piece of revolutionary propaganda had been made in America, it might well have been directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne. The film is unashamed hero-worship of a rough-hewn common man who bravely steps forward in a time of trouble and becomes a reluctant leader. In this case, though, he's a card-carrying Soviet member of the Red Army.
As portrayed here, Chapayev (Boris Babochkin) is one of nature's noblemen, a genuine folk hero who has risen through the ranks and inspires everyone he comes in contact with to stand firm against the White Russians. The war between the Reds and Whites has been going on for some time as the story begins, without explanation. Soviet audiences of the 1930s would not need any background. Contemporary viewers, however, will at first be mystified by this figure who comes charging into a village on a horse-dawn cart towing a large-caliber machine gun on a trailer. With all the jingling bells on the harness, he's a sort of mythic warrior-Santa who rallies his dispirited countrymen … and countrywomen. Anna (Varvara Myasnikova) wants to learn how to operate the machine gun and she's not about to stand for the crude moves that one soldier tries to put on her when she asks for instruction.
The rambling first half establishes civilian-military conflicts and Chapayev's bona fides as a peasant, someone who understands both sides. He's a self-taught soldier whose ideas about tactics are explained in a wonderfully bombastic demonstration with potatoes. When young Furmanov (Boris Blinov) is assigned as the region's new commissar, making him Chapayev's superior, trouble appears to be eminent. At about the same time, though, the White Army arrives. With their black uniforms and death-head flag, they're none-too-subtle stand-ins for Nazis, and that is the point. Though they are somewhat dated, the battle scenes are the most vigorous parts of the film. The obvious comparison here is Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, made four years later, though Chapayev is so much more realistic that the two films have little to do with each other.
Directors Georgy and Sergei Vasilyev—who were called brothers even though they were not related—worked for the state film company and their real objectives here are never in question. This is inspirational propaganda; the story of a brave, seasoned hero and the sympathetic bureaucrat who loves the older man and tries to help him adjust to changing times. The Vasilyevs also try to smooth over internal civilian-military conflicts. Seen today, the political manipulation is so transparent that it's never offensive and the whole disjointed tale is made more palatable by a quirky sense of humor. Chapayev is too rough, too “foreign” for most audiences today, but it's also engagingly unsophisticated and passionate.
Cast: Boris Babochkin (Gen. Chapayev), Leonid Kmit (Petka), Boris Chirkov, Varvara Myasnikova (Anna), Illarian Pevzov (Borosdin), Stephan Shkurat, Boris Blinov (Furmanov), Vyacheslav Volkov, Nikolai Simonov, Georgi Zhzhenov; Written by: Sergei Vassiliev, Georgy Vassiliev; Cinematography by: Aleksander Sigayev, Alexander Xenofontov; Music by: Gavriil Popov. Producer: Lenfilm. Russian. Running Time: 101 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta.