On Friday October 16th, we watched a Russian silent film that was based around the worst aspects of humanity. While I was watching I couldn’t help but compare it to some of the silent films I had seen when I was younger. All the silent films I was used to were more light hearted and comedic than the Russian film. This demonstrates the difference in ideals between soviet and Western films at that time: During the late 1890’s-early 1900’s, all the Western films were produced to catch the attention of every member of society from children and teenagers to adults and elders. Even without sound or voices these films were easy to understand and caught everyone’s attention through the comedic relief of the main character(s). This seems to match the ideals towards humanity in Western society – that everyone has a goodness inside us that will emerge to help bring light to the dark. The producers and writers for the Russian film we saw in class had a different objective in mind: from the outset one could tell that the film was based around a much darker outset on life, that almost every character in the film had a dark ideal/belief/outlook on life be it greed, fear, lust and/or hopelessness. In a scene after the son Freder has a moment with Maria, he is seen praying to several statues representing the deadly biblical sins (lust, deceit, etc.) Rather than look to the blessings of God and the Holy Son, he prays to the dark spirits of life and the world to spare him and his beloved. At the same time, the father lusts for the face of Maria to be added to the robot built by his ‘trusted’ scientist-inventor; this was done against the advice of the scientist who quoted how it would cost him the most important thing he had in Hel: his son, Freder. The fact that he would commit such a thing in spite of his own son made me feel sick to the stomach; if I never see this film again in my life, it’ll be too soon.