Tsirk

The movie Tsirk is about a Russian woman named Mary who was a socially out casted for having a black child. During her escape she is meets her soon to be German manager Von Kneishitz. After running away from her previous life with her new born baby, she joins the circus. In this new group she is at least making a living but she still feels like she must hide from her past. Her manager, Von Kneishitz, is always reminding Mary of her situation and frequently threatens to reveal Mary's illegitimate child. As Mary becomes more at home in her new environment she begins to have feelings for the ideal Russian man. As her feelings continue to grow for the great Russian man the threat to reveal her child becomes more real. While pursuing her new love Mary's plans are thwarted by the conniving and evil German. The film ends in glory after Von Kneishitz reveals Mary's son. All the people under the big top unite to welcome the newly discovered child into the warm embrace of the Russian state. All of this happens while they laugh at the silly German for being racist and turn him into the outcast.

This film is brimming with propaganda. This film shows just how great the Russian people are when they unite together to belittle the foolish and backward German. There is also a scene that features a giant poster of Stalin that helps the viewer to see that this work was used as propaganda. While on the one hand it supports Russian unity and demonstrated the evils of the German people it also was racist in its own rite. During one of the final scenes all of the different ethnic groups sing to the child in their own native language. The shot with the Jewish group singing to the child was cut out of the official soviet release.

This was an interesting film but I would only recommend it to those interested in seeing how the Russian government was interested in spreading the message of the state through film.