Deserter
Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
1933
100 minutes Black & white




This is a very good movie and it's still relevant for most of the world.
The "deserter" is actually a German worker who falls for social-democratic
ideas in the midst of a strike started by communists and social-democrats
together, but abandoned by the social-democrats as time went on.

Recognizing the deserter's weaknesses and strengths, the Communist Party
in Germany selects him as one of four people to go to the Soviet Union
for a period of recuperation from the brutal battle of the shipyard strike.
While there he learns directly of the benefits of the Soviet Union to workers.

As the back cover emphasizes the movie showed in 1933 how sound could be used
to the point of "overload" to stress certain points. It was the Soviet Union
making the most of "big sound" as we might call it today. As such, the film
is stylistically still recognizable to the contemporary viewer.

Although there is a strong role for wimmin characters in the movie in a way that is still
timely, our major concern is that some will view this movie as if male manufacturing workers
from Germany are still the center of the world revolution. Today, the majority 
of people in Germany and other advanced capitalist countries are petty-bourgeoisie.
Bearing that in mind, MIM gives this film and its politics a hearty endorsement.