Happiness (Snatchers)

Alexander Medvedkin's Happiness is one of the last Russian silents, and one of the most original. It's a comic fable about a peasant who faces his natural enemies - the koulaks, the police, the Pope and the Tsar's employees. Like Dovzhenko's Ukrainian films, Happiness springs from the depths of Russian folk culture, bringing humor - and a touch of people's madness - to the Revolutionary cinema. Eisenstein saw the film, and stated: “I just saw Medvedkin's Happiness, and I can't contain myself. Because today I have seen how a Bolshevik laughs!”

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