The 15 years after the 1917 Russian Revolution produced some of the most exciting art the world had ever seen. Artists found new ways to represent the hopes of the newly free, optimistic country led by Lenin, but after his death they were silenced when Stalin enforced socialist realism as a political tool. Many were killed or sent to the gulag.
This semi-dramatised documentary reveals how many artworks survived the purge and went on to influence the artistic world. Focusing on artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Marc Chagall, director Margy Kinmonth explains the significance and legacy of their major works. Interviews with the artists’ descendants – many of whom are artists themselves – show how that short period of unfettered creativity left its mark on Russian culture. The dramatised scenes add little and range from superfluous to baffling, but the commentary on the art itself is fascinating and the sad endings of most artists’ stories leave you wondering what might have been.
