Working with children led Barskaya to create superb direct sound and an inspired style of shooting. Don’t look for conventional cinematic syntax here. The film is chaotic in the way that Soviet films still knew how to be, and Langlois couldn’t help but be seduced by its rebellious spirit, its anarchy and love of children, comparable to Vigo’s Zero de conduite.
As well as being a film made with and for children, it offers a complex take on Western society. Pre-Nazi Germany is not named as such but is carefully reconstructed, possibly under advice from Karl Radek, and children offer a playful reflection of class struggle – doubly excluded, as proletarians and as minors. “They play in the same way that they live”, one intertitle says. The interaction between their comical games and the yet more ludicrous ones played by adults is developed on several levels.
Михаил Климов
as Pastor
Ivan Novoseltsev
as Valter's father
Varvara Alyokhina
as School teacher
Клавдия Половикова
as Blind woman
Владимир Уральский
as Police agent
Lev Losev
as
Nikolay Losev
as
Анна Чекулаева
as Valter's mother
Наталья Садовская
as
Olga Bazanova
as (uncredited)
Георгий Милляр
as Passerby (uncredited)
Vladimir Mikhaylov
as Passerby (uncredited)
