Alexander Nevsky (1938): A Review

ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938)

Directed by : Sergei Eisenstein

Year of Release: 1938

movie poster

This is the second movie of Sergei Eisenstein that I have watched. The first one was Battleship Potemkin, released in 1925. I really enjoyed watching Potemkin, especially its complex camerawork in the Odessa steps sequence.. Understanding the limitations involved in filming these scenes especially in the Silent Film era, makes you really want to admire the spectacle that Battleship Potemkin is. As a Russian propagandist film promoting the cause of the socialist revolution among the workers against the tyranny of the monarchical state and army, this silent film was successfully able to convey those feelings of agitation, protest and solidarity. Potemkin is not just a gem among silent films, but is actually an enduring classic for all times. It is my personal opinion that silent films were never handicapped despite the absence of recorded sound and spoken dialogues. Contrarily, the silence did have a voice and that voice was heard through beautiful symbolism strewn throughout the cinematic landscape, focused acting (such as in the Passion of Joan of Arc) and innovative camerawork. I think Eisenstein's strength lay in manipulating the camera in such a way that each scene was exploding with action on a massive scale. His direction style uplifted the 'crowd' from a homogeneous blob of mass to one which had agency and was full of life and action. Despite not focusing on any one character, Eisenstein made you empathize with the struggles of each member of the community portrayed. Basically, the message endorsed in his film was that the struggle of the community is the struggle of each individual involved and one cannot exist without the another.

Alexander Nevsky can be seen in a similar light as Battleship Potemkin. Alexander Nevsky was a 13th century Russian warlord who successfully defended his territories from the invasion of the Swedes and the Teutonic Order of Germany. Clearly he was a figure worth emulating and immensely canonized in Russian nationalist literature. The Wikipedia article on Alexander Nevsky (the film) mentions that Eisenstein wanted to base Alexander on Stalin, the then Russian dictator. Whatever his intentions were, one can easily tell after watching the film that it is less historical drama and more of a propagandist one.

The titular character as portrayed by Russian actor Nikolai Cherkasov

Even though it is a sound film with spoken dialogues, I actually found the movie quite inferior to Battleship Potemkin. Even though it had all major elements of an Eisenstein film, it did not evoke the same kind of thrill that Potemkin did. In fact, the famous 'Battle of the Ice' sequence felt too long and drawn out. The battle scenes seemed too scattered and at times too comical and simplistic. Maybe its because I watched Potemkin first because of which it's specter hung over my head while I watched this movie. But I truly missed the angst and complexity portrayed in Potemkin. The reasons why I compare both films is simply because the message conveyed is technically the same, which is simply rousing the oppressed peasants/workers against an oppressive corrupt elite which is the nobility and the religious class of priests. However, in Alexander Nevsky, a leader is clearly portrayed who is constantly encouraging the community to stay strong and united against a common enemy. Interestingly, at the end of the film, the crowd does not actually target the knights or the soldiers but the symbols of religious orders who are considered as corrupt and as trouble makers who allow innocent children of the peasantry to be willingly massacred. The enemy is no particular person but rather the existing social order which needs to be purged of its corrupt elements and in order to achieve this, Nevsky becomes the perfect historical figure to be used in expressing current contemporary concerns of the Russian state.

The priests allowing children of the captured city of Pskov to be massacred 

The depiction of Alexander Nevsky is itself a very interesting for me. More than Stalin, I feel Eisenstein has depicted him as some military version of Jesus (I have no obvious idea what Eisenstein really wanted to depict through this portrayal and these are actually my own conclusions). According to the Christian traditions, the Jews expected the Messiah to be someone who would lead the Jews to victory against the Roman Empire but Jesus' mission turned out to be contrary to what was anticipated by the masses. In fact, Judas' betrayal was assumed to be because of disappointment with this new Messiah. In the film, first of all, the actor playing Alexander Nevsky is styled according to the basic portrayal of Christ. He also has loyal disciples like Vasili and Gavrilo whom he constantly discourages from acting as Judas Iscariot did. The opening scene has him fishing with the people, which not only depicts him as an ideal socialist leader, but also seems as a quaint biblical reference to Jesus' statement that "I shall make you fishers' of men". Throughout the film, he is depicted as an asexual and ideal male who is gathering the lost flock of peasantry towards him. In all these respects, he is similar to the traditional portrayal of Jesus. However, where he differs is that he a messianic figure who defends his land and people from all those who dare to attack. In fact, where Jesus failed, Nevsky succeeds and in turn establishes a new religious/socialist order. The attack on religious figures and symbols at the end is the depiction of  the end of not just an old and decaying social order but also the old idea of Christianity. Nevsky is the new messianic figure, and if Eisenstein intended Nevsky to stand for Stalin, what we really get is an indirect Messianic portrayal of Stalin who is ready to lead his people to not just a new state but in fact to a new religious order, which is probably a cult of personality centered around Stalin. In contrast, I found Zemlya, released in 1930 and directed by Alexander Dovzhenko, similar in its critique of Christianity but less obsessed with the Messianic aspect. The ending of Zemlya depicts an outright rejection of the religious symbols and authorities. In fact, this film chooses to go back to its Slavic roots of fertility worship and paganism. Whereas Zemlya chooses to use its non-Christian past to depict the socialism as a new religious order, Alexander Nevsky in fact twists the Christian/Jewish version of the Messianic beliefs to give a certain legitimacy to the new socialist order.

A scene from the movie Zemlya

Overall, the movie was entertaining enough. The war scenes were a bit too long but it still managed to keep you engaged. The side love story seemed pretty useless to me and too wishy-washy. I did enjoy watching the costume designs in this movie especially the decorative headgear of the Knights of Teutonic Order as well as those of the Catholic priests. It's a simple enough film with very clear objectives it wants to portray and it gives the audience exactly the kind of action scenes and emotions that are desired.

With Potemkin, Eisenstein set a huge bar that would probably matched by few. Though Alexander Nevsky does not come close in matching those standards, I still feel in its use of cultural figures and religious imagery, it is special in its own way.