Arsenal
About Arsenal
A title says a mother had three sons, then a war, then no sons. Soldiers ride a train home. The worker Timosh (Semen Svashenko), back in Kyiv from the Tsarist army, joins the Bolsheviks as the city splits between the Central Rada and the workers. In January 1918 the Arsenal workers rise, aid the Bolsheviks outside the city, and face the Rada's haidamak units. Their ammunition runs out, marked on titles as the 24th, the 48th, and the 72nd hour. At the end Timosh's machine gun jams. He tears his shirt open. The haidamaks fire three volleys and shout for him to fall. He stays on his feet.
Cast & crew
More about Arsenal
Oleksandr Dovzhenko wrote, directed, and edited it at the Odesa studio of VUFKU in 1928. Danylo Demutskyi was the cameraman. Volodymyr Muller designed the sets; filmreference also credits Isaac Shpinel. The release length is given as 92 minutes and, in one catalog, 1,820 meters across seven reels. Igor Belza wrote the music later attached to the film. An alternate title is January Uprising in Kiev in 1918. It opened on 25 February 1929.
Themes
Background
The story is the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising of 1918, when factory workers sided with the besieging Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian People's Republic and its Central Rada.
In film history
A 2011 poll by the Bureau of Ukrainian Film Journalism and the Union of Cinematographers placed it 11th among 15 Ukrainian films. In 2021 the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre ranked it 27th on a list of 100 best Ukrainian films.
Making
Dovzhenko shot it at VUFKU's Odesa factory with original sets rather than on the streets of Kyiv. He had fought for the government the film shows losing the Arsenal.
Reviews
Anthology Film Archives selected it for the Essential Cinema repertory in the early 1970s. Ukrainian critics' polls in 2011 and 2021 kept it on national lists.
Look
Danylo Demutskyi shot it at the Odesa studio. The train, the religious procession, and the firing squad are cut as bursts of movement against faces held almost still.
Music
Silent, with Russian and Ukrainian intertitles. Igor Belza is credited with the music used on later prints.
Preservation
Prints circulate, including a copy on the Internet Archive under the identifier arsenal_1929. The film is silent, with Russian and Ukrainian intertitles.
Notes
- It is the middle film of Dovzhenko's Ukraine trilogy, between Zvenigora (1928) and Earth (1930).
- Dovzhenko had taken part in the 1918 fighting on the side of the Central Rada, not the Arsenal workers.
- The scenario names the hero Tymish as well as Timosh, and has him answer the gunners, "A Ukrainian worker!
- A frozen soldier is shot by an officer for refusing to move, staged as a row of still images.
- Intertitles are in Russian and Ukrainian.
- In the early 1970s Anthology Film Archives put it in the Essential Cinema collection.
Scenes
- Titles reduce a mother from three sons to none while men pass on a train.
- Strikers hold the Arsenal through the 24th, 48th, and 72nd hours as the ammunition fails.
- Timosh rips his shirt open, takes three volleys, and does not fall.
Also available
- Internet Archive (arsenal_1929)
Quotes
A Ukrainian worker! Shoot!
Fall! Fall!
