Director:  Sergei Eisenstein, Grigory Alexandrov, Nikita Orlov

Features:

• A sampling of texts pertaining to the production and release of "Que Viva Mexico!"
• "Romance Sentimentale (1930, 20 min.) - Eisenstein's first sound film, this experimental 1930 short is a dazzling symphony of images and sounds, made in collaboration with Alexandrov and photographer Eduard Tisse"
• "Misery and Fortune of Woman" (1929, 20 min. excerpt) - This ultra-rare 1929 film by Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse uses Soviet-style montage to promote safe ob/gyn medicine in Europe.

Aspect Ratio:

Full Frame

Audio:

Russian

DC-DVD Price: £20.75

Having revolutionized film editing through such masterworks of montage as Potemkin and Strike, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein emigrated west in hopes of testing the capabilities of the American film industry. Quickly ostracized from Hollywood, Eisenstein, Grigory Alexandrov and photographer Eduard Tisse (at the urging of author Sinclair) wandered south of the border where they began filming a highly stylized documentary on the people and volatile social climate of Mexico. Unfortunately, a lack of funds prohibited the film's completion and the famed director was unable to edit the film. In 1979, by referring to Eisenstein's extensive notes and sketches, Alexandrov assembled the most definitive version of the film - as close to Eisenstein's vision as one is ever likely to come.

A blend of the ethnographic, the political, the scenic and the surreal, Que Viva Mexico! is nothing short of brilliant and remains superior to the legion of films it strongly influenced: Welles' It's All True, Jodorowsky's El Topo and the works of Sergio Leone. With sequences devoted to the Edenic land of Tehuantepec, the savage majesty of the bullfight, the struggles of the noble peon and the hypnotic imagery of the Day of the Dead, Que Viva Mexico! is a vivid tapestry of Mexican life which (thanks to Alexandrov's careful restoration) takes its rightful place alongside Eisenstein's other legendary works.

Also included on this DVD are Romance Sentimentale (1930), an attempt to apply Soviet montage theories to sound/visual editing, and an amazing rediscovery: Misery And Fortune Of Woman (1929). Intended to encourage legal and sanitary birth/abortion clinics in Europe, this remarkable film is also a stunning dramatization of the plight of working class women, displaying all the earmarks of Soviet montage and the distinctive genius Sergei Eisenstein.