''Interplanetary Revolution'' () is one of the first

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

animated film Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

s, shot in 1924. A production of the experimental animation workshop set up by the authors.

Giannalberto Bendazzi Giannalberto Bendazzi (17 July 1946 – 13 December 2021) was an Italian animation historian, author, and professor. Life and career Born in Ravenna, Italy, and raised in Milan, Bendazzi started his career as a journalist and at the same time a ...

(2016) ''Animation: A World History: Volume I: Foundations - The Golden Age'' at

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pp. 76—78
The author credits for the detailed description of the creation of the film The 8-minute black and white silent animated short was directed and written by Nikolai Khodataev, and Yuri Merkulov.

Background

In 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 Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov (; 4 February (Old Style, O.S. 23 January ) 1881 – 8 August 1945) was a Russian and USSR, Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of cinema of Russia. He was an Honored Artist of the ...

, 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.

Plot

Frightened by the advance of the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...

across planet

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, the

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...

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" () follows them, but he lands on a futuristic Mars, where he fosters a victorious

proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialist ...

Analysis

The animation is of primitive cutout style, with almost no

intertitle In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...

s. 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 The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

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. Polish historian notices that one uniformed character with moustache closely resembles Polish marshal Pilsudski.Andrzej Zawistowski
Jak Sowieci prezentowali wojnę polsko-bolszewicką w filmach fabularnych?
/ref> Not only the images of capitalists, but the communists as well were parodied.Natalya Maysova (), ''Советская кинофантастика и космическая эра. Незабвенное будущее '', 202
p. 39
/ref> The propaganda in the film is described as extremely cliched and straightforward (but probably only from the modern point of view).Interplanetary Revolution
''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (''SFE'') is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo Award, Hugo, Locus Award, Locus and BSFA Award, British SF Awards. Two print editions appea ...

'' The filmmakers seem to poke some fun at '' Aelita'': Kominternov sees a man and a woman on the Moon kissing.

Notes

References

External links

*({{IMDb title, 0230521 1924 films 1920s Soviet films 1920s Russian-language films Films about rebellions Soviet science fiction films Soviet animated films Soviet animated short films Silent science fiction films 1924 science fiction films Animated films based on novels Films based on Russian novels Films based on works by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy