Blockade

Name: Blockade
Genre: Documentary
Released: March 14, 2007
Duration: 52 min
Rating: 70

2007

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Generally favorable reviews based on 5 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

First Run/Icarus Films | Release Date: March 14, 2007

Summary: The siege of Leningrad during World War II famously lasted 900 days, leaving more than 600,000 dead from starvation, disease or cold. Blockade, a compilation film based entirely on silent footage found in Moscow's archives, is an extraordinary account of life and death in a great city experiencing unprecedented hardship. (First Run/Icarus Films)

Director: Sergei Loznitsa

Genre(s): Documentary

Runtime: 52 min

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Critic Reviews

Stephen Holden

It all has a ghostly feel, like eerie murmurs during a séance: the static of history heard on a short-wave radio. Read full review

V.A. Musetto

The surreal images lack narration and talking heads, which is no problem. In fact, the device makes the shocking footage more compelling. Read full review

Jim Ridley

Loznitsa doesn't adorn the eerie footage with talking heads and factoid title cards. What narrative there is, along with a sense of incrementally mounting horror, emerges unbidden from the images. Read full review

Leslie Felperin

Told without voiceover, explanatory subtitles or any other contextualizing material, Russian docu Blockade looks unlikely to show up on the History Channel as it stands now. Nevertheless, this absorbing account of the 900-day siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during WWII, told entirely through re-edited archive footage with freshly made sound, reps poignant viewing as it focuses on the daily lives of the city's inhabitants. Read full review

Jack Mathews

The film makes you squirm as well as empathize, but it does need narration. Read full review

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User Reviews

AndresZ.

Mar 19, 2007

Weeks in New York's Film Forum alongside its joint presentation with Amateur Photographer, is an excellent use of hand made sound and insightful archival footage, a fifty minute journey into the heart of Stalingrad. The silence of the film makes the footage a bit more compelling than Weeks in New York's Film Forum alongside its joint presentation with Amateur Photographer, is an excellent use of hand made sound and insightful archival footage, a fifty minute journey into the heart of Stalingrad. The silence of the film makes the footage a bit more compelling than other films with voice overs, yet despite its humanistic feel for sympathy among the town being bombed by the Germans, the only thing the film lacks is concentration. One could say it takes getting used to, but regardless, it lacks the ability to absorb quickly and ecstatically. Along side its visually inept and trite companion Amateur Photographer, Blockade does not quite get its justice on the big screen.… Expand

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