Tromsø: ‘Arsenal’ LIVE Norwegian doomsday orchestra ATTAN

‘Arsenal’ by Oleksandr Dovzhenko LIVE accompanied by the Norwegian doomsday orchestra ATTAN at Tromsø International Film Festival.

Arsenal is a soviet silent film that describes the destructive forces of war through a strong sense of symbolism. We are shown a series of vignettes that sheds light on the January Rebellion in Kyiv in 1918.

Arsenal is a film about war and conflict. It begins in the aftermath of the First World War, and we see war invalids, exhausted women, and hungry children in a depopulated village. People walk and stand like living shadows in the impoverished village. Farmers die trying to make a living on the barren land. Then we follow a strike where the hero of the film, a soldier who has recently returned from the war, supports the Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian Parliament. The film contains several iconic war scenes and shows a raw depiction of war.