Before the roaring success of The Women of Ryazan, Ol’ga Preobraženskaja occupied a modest niche making films for chilAnja 221 dren. In the 1920s in the Soviet Union fairy tales were banned, so as not to distract children from the important task of building socialism. Young people were offered instead edifying stories in which their young protagonists emulated the heroic actions of adults. Prominent filmmakers did not venture into this genre, and it was left mainly to new, young directors or those who were ‘non grata’, belonging to the previous generation, such as Preobraženskaja. Anja falls legitimately into this category. A teenager, alone in the world, meets a sailor/revolutionary, joins the cause of the revolution and enlists in the Red Army. “To contrast the schmaltzy films of Jackie Coogan, we wanted to present children as an active part of the revolution”, wrote the director. “In Anja children die for the revolution […] it is not a film for children, but one in which children play a role […] it shows the revolution as it is perceived by and reflected through the soul of a child”. For Preobraženskaja the film represented a turning point. It was a classic example of ‘estrangement’, a principle first described by the formalist philosopher Viktor Šklovskij. Throughout the history of cinema this concept has been strictly associated with experimentalism, particularly to the Factory of Eccentric Actors (FEKS); however even some so-called traditionalists understood how to use ‘estrangement’ creatively. Two years later Ol’ga Preobraženskaja and Ivan Pravov ‘abstracted’ the revolution into the world of the circus, in The Last Attraction, written by Šklovskij himself. In Anja the child’s perception of the revolution generates a mix of genres. The end result is a dynamic adventure film that at times tends toward broad comedy, and at others toward realistic drama. In one instance there are revolutionaries hiding in caskets from imbecilic gendarmes stoned on hashish who are easily duped. In another there is the imagery, shot in pure documentary style, of the dead protagonist’s family members (their bodies covered by wicker, with only their feet sticking out, and one with mouth agape). The overall subdued tone of the film is at times upset by frenetic editing, and the otherwise realistic cinematography mottled by jittery splashes of light. In this film Vasilij Chvatov, the second cameraman of Ejzenštejn in Strike shows off his virtuosity. For many years it was believed that only a part of this film had survived. Subsequently three more parts were found, but the film had fallen out of anyone’s interest. It appears that this screening of Anja at the Cinema Ritrovato represents its first in over seventy years.

                                                                                                                                             Pëtr Bagrov