Anti-Communist Film From Early 20th Century Restored

My Grandfather (1929) is a satire film about the Soviet bureaucracy that would run - surprise - afoul with the communists and was banned. A practice we're not above today as we seek to cleanse and censor other opinions.

From Project Muse:

"In 1929, a Soviet Georgian actor-turned-director, Kote (aka Konstantin) Mikaberidze (1896–1973), made his first film, My Grandmother (Chemi bebia, Georgian/Moia babushka, Russian), a cutting satire of Soviet bureaucracy. Stalin’s Cultural Revolution (1928–1932) was well under way. This Cultural Revolution had two major components: the social and the artistic. In social terms, Soviet society was dedicated to ridding itself finally of the remnants of the old regime: people, practices, and ideas. An important part of the attack on antiquated practices was the campaign against bureaucracy, which had been the bane of tsarist as well as Soviet Russia. Mikaberidze had every reason to believe, therefore, that he was making a “politically correct film.” He was wrong. The film was banned, not to be screened again until the Georgian film studio restored it in 1976 because, according to the introduction to the restored film, “even today, it will be able to combat certain shameful practices still present in our society.“ Composer and musician Beth Custer has added a lively musical sound track and an English-language narration of the Russian intertitles to this crisply restored version from a copy held by the Pacific Film Archive, who commissioned her to write the score with the support of an National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The plot of My Grandmother is simple. The executives of the “TORK” trust laze about all day, shuffling papers, smoking and eating, playing with toy trucks, and shooting paper airplanes. The business manager, who commits suicide when a typist (with fashionably bobbed hair) refuses his love, is replaced by another unnamed man. The new business manager (Alexander Takaishvili) strongly resembles his predecessor, both physically and in terms of his complete uselessness." 

Wallowing in absolute obscurity, it was never to be seen again until nearly 50 years later (restored with added music from Beth Custer)- when the original director - and likely most of everyone associated with the film were dead. It's ironic, for me anyway, that it has found a new audience in these days where bureaucrats have much power and control. It seems even back then people were calling bull shit about communism. Unfortunately for the film makers, their lives were likely changed under Soviet control.

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