By The Bluest of Seas

Boris Barnet, 1936. Two shipwrecked buddies wash up on a distant shore and immediately fall for the same girl. It’s Soviet, so there has to be some vignette about the virtues of life under communism, but you can tell Barnet’s heart just wasn’t in it.

In a stunning display of actual human behavior (as opposed to the overly serious caricatures we often get in Soviet cinema), one of the men fakes an illness so he can skip out on communal work and further his individual romantic pursuits. When his betrayal is uncovered, I was fully expecting his corpse to be swinging from the gallows. Yet his punishment is much more severe: a look of pure disenchantment on the face of his beloved as she slo-mo rips the necklace he gave her from her neck.

Soviet or American, we can all agree making your best friend work harder by pretending to be sick so you can chase the girl you’re both competing for is some bush-league shit. And despite framing it as a betrayal to the collective, Barnet seems to suggest the betrayal of the friend as the more serious transgression. Even hinting at something like this elevates the film from the tedious propaganda that preceded it.

While the public shaming is indeed a very dramatic scene, the film really feels more like a bromantic comedy. Beyond the occasional musical numbers, there’s an extended comedic gag involving the fitting of a suit which ends up being quite funny, and for a minute it’s easy to forget you’re watching Stalin-sanctioned (albeit, barely) cinema.

When the men ultimately discover the heart of the pursued woman already promised to a soldier away on duty (uhh, thanks for mentioning?), they sail into the sun singing for his safe return. If we take them at face value, they’re virtuous for not stealing a comrade’s woman. But again, Barnet is definitely hinting at a deeper truth of this classic genre. The exact phrase is escaping me – something along the lines of “brotherhood before females”? It’ll come to me.