The story starts in pre revolutionary Russia in 1903 and opens with a quote from Vladimir Lenin, a strike breaks out in a factory after a worker is accused of stealing a micrometer worth 25 rubles. He proclaims his innocence but the management has made up their mind to dock his 3 weeks pay. The worker seeing no recourse hangs himself with his own belt and leaves a note proclaiming his innocence, the other workers stop and fighting ensues as they break into the office and seize the manager dumping him near water that looks like a part of a sewage system.
The owners in the meantime sit comfortably in their office to discuss the union's demands, one of the stockholders bring out a lemon squeezer as a metaphor to the pressure they will apply to the workers. A police agent goes to a beggar who calls himself "King", the agent uses King and his band of misfits to incite chaos on of all places a liquor store.
The band of provocateurs loot and sets fire on the liquor store causing a huge commotion, one of the workers see through the deception as they disperse trying to avoid the police force that are waiting to pounce on them but they are pursued nonetheless and are hosed by the firemen.
The carnage does not stop as a military force is sent after the workers as they are chased into their apartments, one gruesome scene is when a child is killed after being dropped from a balcony by a policeman on horseback. The workers are massacred with an alternating footage of a cow being slaughtered with it's throat cut open completing the symbolism of the horrible ending.
Even though the film's premise and storyline might have been a bit exaggerated it's still a fascinating film in my opinion and one of the greatest film debuts of all time, Eisenstein was able to create an atmosphere of paranoia and chaos predating his other masterpiece "The Battleship"Potemkin" which has also influenced future film makers.
His use of film editing and inter cutting sequences was used effectively in creating
a metaphorical element in film that was never done much in that era seamlessly transitioning it's mood from drama to organized chaos. The 2 most memorable scenes for me is the killing of the infant and of course the slaughtering of the cow that Francis Ford Coppola also used in his Vietnam war masterpiece "Apocalypse Now". Like most of Eisenstein's films "Strike" is full of pro communist doctrines which shows it's hatred of the ruling bourgeois and it's pro proletarian message of collectivism against individualism avoiding the stereotypes of western film making.
But even with it's Communist propaganda message and it's Leninist views, the film cannot be denied it's place as a classic of it's time and it's director's rightful place as one of the great debuts of all time.
Grade: A-
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