Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Man with a Movie Camera is one of the most formally radical films ever made — Dziga Vertov's city symphony is a breathtaking showcase of cinematic technique: split screens, freeze frames, slow motion, reverse motion, extreme close-ups, and self-reflexive meta-commentary on the act of filmmaking itself. Cinematography earns a genuine 4 as Roger Deakins himself has cited it as an influence; the visual invention is staggering for 1929 or any era. Novelty is equally 4 — no film before or since looks quite like it; its structural and philosophical distinctiveness is singular. The ending, a kinetic montage crescendo, is thrilling but not as cohesive as the film's individual sequences. Acting and Plot score low by design: this is a non-narrative documentary with no performers in the traditional sense, and its 'plot' is an associative flow of daily Soviet life rather than a structured story — rating them higher would misrepresent the work.