Interplanetary Revolution
Interplanetary Revolution (Russian: Межпланетная революция)[a] is one of the first Soviet animated films, shot in 1924. A production of the experimental animation workshop set up by the authors.[b][3] The 8-minute black and white silent animated short was directed and written by Nikolai Khodataev, Zenon Komissarenko and Yuri Merkulov.[4][3] BackgroundIn 1924, Vasily Zhuravlev published the screenplay The Conquest of the Moon by Mr. Fox and Mr. Trott, which later formed the basis for Interplanetary Revolution by directors Nikolai Khodatayev, Zenon Komissarenko and Yuri Merkulov, also students of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. The cartoon was created as animated inserts for the science fiction film Aelita by Yakov Protazanov. However, in the end it was not included in it and was released separately as a parody in the same year, but was not shown in theatres.[5][1] PlotFrightened by the advance of the proletariat across planet Earth, the bourgeoisie of all countries fly into space in a spaceship resembling a shoe in the hope of saving themselves and the plundered capital, but they are eventually swallowed by the sun. The "red warrior kommissar Kominternov" (красный воин комиссар Коминтернов) follows them, but he lands on a futuristic Mars, where he fosters a victorious proletarian revolution.[5][4] AnalysisThe animation is of primitive cutout style, with almost no intertitles.[4] The film is made of cliches: it shows a bourgeois with buldog's heads with an axe wearing a top hat under which a swastika is hidden, vampires in tailcoats with swastikas on their foreheads who suck the blood of a worker. Their hair stands on end from the newspaper "Pravda", etc.[6] Polish historian Andrzej Zawistowski notices that one uniformed character with moustache closely resembles Polish marshal Pilsudski.[7] Not only the images of capitalists, but the communists as well were parodied.[5] The propaganda in the film is described as extremely cliched and straightforward (but probably only from the modern point of view).[4] The filmmakers seem to poke some fun at Aelita: Kominternov sees a man and a woman on the Moon kissing.[4] Notes
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