Arsenal is a tributeto the workers of the Ukraine, tracing their struggles from World War I,through the February and October Revolutions, to the suppression of aworkers' revolt in 1918. Dovzhenko presents harsh, realistic scenes ofCzarist brutality and war's destruction, but his juxtapositions areimpressionistic and symbolic. Jay Leyda writes in Kino: "The firstmasterpiece of the Ukrainian cinema broke entirely with traditional filmstructure and subject, depending solely on a flow of ideas and emotionsrather than upon conflicts between individual characters.... (The)extraordinary dependence on image and symbolism in Arsenal can no morebe fully translated into concrete meanings than the imagery and rhythmand color of a poem...." In the film's most famous sequence, CzarNicholas writes in his diary, "Today I shot a crow"; cut to an oldpeasant collapsing from exhaustion in a field. In another powerful,disturbing image, a Ukrainian lights a candle before a portrait of thenational poet; the picture suddenly comes alive and the face in it blowsout the candle.