By the Law (Lev Kuleshov, 1926)

If you already read my thoughts about this film on IMDb, there's no need to read this, since it's basically the same stuff I already said there (albeit with spoiler stuff). I just needed to break out of my Dark Knight/Frost/Nixon/Benjamin Button rut...

SPOILERS WITHIN

Even before just a few months ago, I thought that Kuleshov was just an early film theorist – I didn’t know that he actually had made any films. When I learned that he had made some feature films, I stupidly thought that they would just be dry and uninteresting experiments in film technique. I was terribly wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. By the Law is one of the most tense and gripping dramas I’ve seen – and that’s true even without the silly label of “for its time.” It concerns a group of gold miners in the Yukon who aren’t having any luck with their mining at a certain location. As their manual laborer, Michael, is packing up their camp, he discovers gold nuggets and they decide to stay in the location for longer. They have further success, but a few months later, Michael walks into their cabin and inexplicably shoots and kills two of their group before the remaining two manage to subdue him. Although the leader of the group, Hans, is all for killing him on the spot, his wife Edith insists that he get a fair trial back home (by the law, you could even say!). But before they can move back to civilization, the yukon ice starts melting, flooding the area and stranding them for weeks.

Regardless of however exciting that may or may not sound, the film is a success on a level beyond just plot. Michael is shown as a sort of symbol of nature: as Hans and Edith go out into the wilderness to bury the deceased, he thrashes around in the ropes they bound him in like some crazed wild animal. Another indication of this is that in the opening scene, while four of the five the miners sleep, Michael’s playing with the group’s dog – he’s the only one to really connect with nature. On the other hand, Edith and Hans are more reminiscent of civilization, in their desire to have him stand trial by the law, their practice of religion, and so on. That isn’t to say that the film is a simple allegory for something like the the taming of nature by society, as the end of the film shows in full effect: due to the protracted nature of their visit with nature, during which time Michael has tempted both Edith and Hans individually to kill him, they eventually decide to conduct the trial themselves – from which they conclude that they have to hang him. They do. But in the film’s final moment, as they’re packing up to leave, Michael appears in the cabin’s door frame with the noose still around his neck. He takes the gold, taking off his noose, tossing it to Edith and Hans for “good luck.” In a bizarre sort of metaphysical and symbolic turn of events, nature has resurrected Michael. An IMDb reviewer said this, and I can’t possibly try to say it better:
“Dennin represents the adaptable, at home in the selfish wilderness. Hans is prepared to respond in king to Dennin’s brutal greed, but Edith must cling to the grooves of civilization, religion and the law. But in the wild, the laws of man do not reign. Edith and Hans have done nothing more than conduct a false trial, giving false authority to actions. So Kuleshov has taken this irrationality unique to man, and given it to nature. Nature response with the mysterious and incomprehensible unexpected.”

The film’s visual style is equally brilliant – although it was made in the Soviet Union at the same time as Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Dovzhenko, while the soviet montage theory was still largely in effect, it’s a precursor of Tarkovsky's cinema more than anything else. It never does a Eisensteinian electrifying collision of shots; rather, it goes for the poetic image that we can immerse ourselves in [whatever the merits of Eisenstein, this is a style I far prefer]. While the land is flooding, the exterior shot we get of the cabin is that of it being reflected in a large puddle of water – subtly, Kuleshov is juxtaposing a sign of civilization, the cabin, against the forces of nature, largely foreshadowing what will happen by the end of the film. As Edith, Hans, and Michael make their way to the tree that will serve as hangman, they’re followed by an oddly emotional tracking shot, observing each one in turn as they each try to come to terms with what they’re doing. I hardly expected this from someone who I thought was just a film theorist: Kuleshov's an utterly brilliant director.

The musical score on the Kino VHS is absolutely indispensable – if you can locate it, it’s worth however many arms and legs you have to give to get it.

I also watched Kuleshov’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, which is somewhat amusing but doesn’t amount to much. It’s worth seeing, but don’t try judging Kuleshov’s directorial skill from it – he’s capable of better, as this film shows in spades. It’s a travesty that these are the only available films from him.

One of my absolute favorite films – possibly even top ten stuff. Certainly my most recently seen film that I can consider a favorite.