“A tale of the coal miners of the Don Basin after four years of the first Five Year Plan. ‘To grasp the feverish reality of life in the Don Basin, to convey as true to life as possible its atmosphere of the clash of hammers, of train whistles, of the songs of workers at rest - this was my aim' (Dziga Vertov)....
“Vertov made a vivid and unusual use of sound that was considerably ahead of its time. Natural sounds (machinery, voices, debates, songs, etc.) recorded in the mines and villages of the Don Basin were edited by Vertov as freely as he cut visuals, creating a kind of musique concrète. Chaplin was ecstatic over the film and wrote: ‘I would never have believed it possible to assemble mechanical noises to create such beauty. One of the most superb symphonies I have known. Dziga Vertov is a musician.'” --Georges Sadoul, “Dictionary of Films”