Fall of the Romanov Dynasty seems to not know what it wants to be as a film. Presenting a chronological set of not uninteresting documentary footage, Dynasty fails to present historical information in anything but the most barest of terms. On the other hand, the film completely lacks in dramatization or characterization, and so apparently styles itself as a historical narrative. The entire structure of the film is characterized by strange choices. The opening sequences, comparing the lives of the aristocracy and the lower classes in Tsarist Russia, are a fine exposition, but consume a whopping third of the total screen-time without much variation. Dynasty suggests that WWI was some sort of money-making venture among the ruling classes and industrialists of Europe, which leads one to believe one is watching a work of socialist propaganda. However, when the revolution is finally reached, it is depicted almost entirely as a reactionary movement to the horrors of the war and the inabilities of the monarchy rather than an ideological battle. The images of mobilization and war are the most exciting ones, and in that sense, fail to fulfill the apparent goal of denouncing imperial injustices. Perhaps the strangest element is the choice to relegate the Bolshevik revolution to the final three minutes of the film: we see Lenin denouncing the provisional government, and then a cut to credits. It may be the case that film-goers had tired of the revolutionary story by 1927, but this eliminates what is probably the most compelling part of Russia's role in WWI. The film's strengths lie in the candid footage; we see the big names – Nicholas II, Kerensky, Lenin – in living movement, and perhaps the only view that many Russians would have gotten of them. Images of imperial and religious ceremonies are well juxtaposed with shots of toiling peasants and marching protesters in a sort of a slide show of pre- and post-revolutionary norms. On the whole, though, Fall of the Romanov Dynasty is rather directionless, and fails to either present a compelling revolutionary ideology or a historical reflection of any depth.
