The New Babylon

One of the very few great Soviet silent directors to re-establish a reputation after the intervening years of social-realist dogma, Kozintsev first made his mark as a pioneer of the 'Eccentric' movement, co-directing with Trauberg a series of extravagant entertainments and satires. The New Babylon represented one of the most controversial examples: muting the formal anarchy, but almost iconoclastically viewing the fate of the 1871 Paris Commune through the eyes of a department store shopgirl.