Published:  00:00 Friday - May 08, 2009

The classic silent film The Battleship Potemkin, known as one of the most influential war films of all time, will be screened in both Hanoi and HCM City.

The film is part of a programme to celebrate Victory in Europe Day on May 9.

The film, made in 1925 by director Sergei Eisenstein, presents a dramatised version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin mutinied against their oppressive Tsarst officers.

The film is set in Russia, when the escalating Russo-Japanese War was exacerbating social and political conflicts in the country. After a massacre of civilians occurred, the people revolted. Discipline in the army and navy was maintained with the harshest of measures, but on the battleship Potemkin, anchored off Odessa harbour, dissatisfaction and low morale lead to mutiny. Solidarity wins in the end and the red flies over all.

Eisenstein’s silent film classic is still considered a milestone in cinematic history, as its new aesthetic technique of using montages had a permanent influence on the way cinema developed. It was named the greatest film of all time at the World Fair in Brussels, Belgium in 1958.

The score for the German version was written in 1926 by Edmund Meisei. It serves as the basis for a new version for two pianos by the German composer, musician and conductor Pierre Oser. For the screenings in Vietnam, Oser himself will be at the piano, together with the German conductor Frank Strobel.

The film will be screened at the Hanoi Opera House, 1 Trang Tien Street, on Saturday and Sunday and in HCM Opera House, 7 Cong Truong Lam Son Street, next Tuesday. All performances start at 8pm.

Free tickets can be collected at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi, at 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc and in HCM City at 335/4 Dien Bien Phu Street.