Lullaby (1929)

Alternating the realistic depiction of a Russian peasant home and expressionistic hallucinations, 'Lullaby' is a remarkable short film that deserves a lot more recognition than it has. It has an oppressive atmosphere that one rarely sees in films of any age or length. The performers look like real Russian peasants. The expressionistic bits are in the style of 'Caligari', with drawings as background. There are also three men with painted faces whose exact meaning and purpose I could not figure out. One can easily see that in this film the class struggle has poor against poor (peasants exploiting a house servant). The ending is a logical solution since the musician can also be considered as an exploited worker. Thus, no matter how poor these peasants are, they are the oppressor simply because they own the land. Marx was right.
(I saw this film on December 18, 2006, as part of the DVD Unseen Cinema: Inverted Narratives.)