4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
excellent silent film, March 7, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: By the Law/Chess Fever [VHS] (VHS Tape)
By The Law is a wonderful silent film that came out of Russia in the 1920's. It is a remarkable film that's plot can't be surfaced over with a sentence or two. I will attempt to give a very brief, ultimately superficial, plot synopsis for those of you that require such a thing. Dennin (Vladmir Fogel) is treated terribly and one day he kills two of his tormentors. The other two tie him up and are going to wait until they can take him to the law to be dealt with. It'd go faster, but you see they are in a cabin in the Yukon that is surrounded by the melting ice. Trapped there they last as long as the can before ultimately they require a trial to be performed.
also featured on the video is a short called Chess Fever, which is about 30 minutes and is a very amusing little short. Why is it included with a drama? i suspect because it too stars Vladmir Fogel as a man so obsessed with chess his fiance can't go through with marriage. It asks the question, is love stronger than chess?
together they don't fit perfectly, but i suppose a lighter short after the dramatic film is a good way to end it. So that you end on a light note.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The powerful with the hilarious, January 3, 2003
This review is from: By the Law/Chess Fever [VHS] (VHS Tape)
If you're interested in the development of Soviet cinema, you really need to see films by Kuleshov's collective. They produced some of the most innovative and entertaining films of the 1920s, and this video has two of them, one directed by Kuleshov himself and the other by a pre-'Mother' Vsevolod Pudovkin.
In 'By the Law,' one can see the roots of 'Soviet' montage, a fine sense of framing with acting that is pretty close to perfect for a silent film (i.e. not quite pantomine, not quite theatrical and not quite what we'd get used to in the sound era). On top of that, the story is exciting and engaging, with an ending that you won't quite expect, even with the other reviewer giving away part of it. If you're a Pudovkin fanatic, like me, you'll also like seeing 'Chess Fever' which has beautiful comic timing, more early montage, and a terrific sense of space and design (watch for chessboard patterns on walls and floors!). It's too bad that Pudovkin couldn't do more comedies, silent or sound, but it's not as if he wasted himself doing dramas.
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