Pavel Petrov-Bytov was an enfant terrible of the highbrow Leningrad Sovkino film factory. He was notorious for his article “We Have No Soviet Filmmaking,” in which he criticized all the achievements of the Soviet avant-garde. In spite of his beliefs and his scandalous struggle with “bourgeois” and “formalist” filmmaking, Petrov-Bytov directed an aesthetically refined work, shot entirely on set with masterful chiaroscuro lighting: a perfect example of “Soviet expressionism.” Based on a Maxim Gork...show more