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USSR Life: Ghostly 70s Footage Revealed
7 Sep
Summary
- Early 70s Soviet Union life captured by Italian crew.
- Documentary lacks interviews, focusing on ambient footage.
- Shows diverse ethnic groups and provincial city life.
Sergei Loznitsa's "Imperium" presents a hypnotic compilation of early 1970s Soviet Union life, drawing from footage filmed between 1970 and 1973 by an Italian crew. This archive-based documentary offers an ethnographic study, devoid of interviews or narration, allowing ambient footage to speak for itself.
The film captures everyday scenes in major cities like Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv, alongside rural traditions in Asian republics. It avoids showcasing state apparatus, focusing instead on ordinary life and cultural displays that pre-dated the Soviet era. Each segment is introduced with a funeral bell and a red screen, adding a somber tone.
"Imperium" invites viewers to gauge the reality of Soviet life, presenting a stolidly grim yet placid panorama. It underscores the USSR's ethnic diversity, presenting the Soviet project as colonial. The film offers a surface-level view of life for those who conformed, leaving the inner thoughts and feelings of its subjects a mystery.
