Strike (Hyperkino Edition) DVD

Trying out new ideas which he was to go on and make famous the following year in Battleship Potemkin, Strike – Eisenstein’s first full-length feature – depicts a strike in 1903 by factory workers in pre-revolutionary Russia, where one of the workers commits suicide after being accused of stealing a micrometer. His colleagues demand higher wages and improved labour conditions, but the management calls in local thugs and then Tsarist Cossacks to suppress their uprising.

Abandoning conventional storytelling in favour of the broad chronicle, the film taps into the revolutionary Soviet experiment even as it happened. Filled with striking images and impressive cross-cutting, Strike – conceived as the first film in the Towards the Dictatorship series – is an enduring and important work of world cinema.



The film is presented as a 2-disc 'hyperkino edition'. Disc 1 contains the standard film in the best available print, with optional subtitles. Disc 2 contains the film, plus numerous scene-specific annotations, video clips and documents (in Russian and in English). These can be viewed on screen, contextualising the film and enhancing the viewer’s understanding. This innovative format works extremely well and is one of the most exciting developments in DVD for years. It is especially valuable for important works of world cinema whose historical contexts crave further exploration.