German director Erwin Piscator shot this film in the Soviet Union after fleeing Nazi Germany. Set in a German fishing village where fishing crews are on strike against monopolistic shipping companies, the film has an emotional urgency and psychological coloring that derive from Piscator's splendid visuals. In her book, The Haunted Screen, Lotte Eisner credits Piscator, a stage director, with an innovative use of crowds reflecting his view of the individual man as part of a collectivity, especially in the Sprechchore (the speaking chorus) and the Ballung (agglomeration of human figures) techniques. For Piscator, the crowd and individuals alike take on an architectural, sometimes machine-like attitude.