Eisenstein's first feature is less disciplined and single-minded
than the better-known Battleship Potemkin, but its imaginative
qualities are if anything even more startling. The montage is less
controlled than that of Potemkin and the juxtaposition of images is
more varied: lyrical scenes of peasant life jostle with baroque
caricatures of capitalist decadence, and the ferocious imagery of
slaughter shares the mechanised relentlessness of the dehumanising
factories. The last scenes possess a shattering intensity. One of the
great silent films.
