Man With a Movie Camera

I thought I'd just post this here since this forum is more active than the board for the movie.

Who agrees with me that the movie is actually very cynical and subversive (by Soviet standards), despite often being labled "propoganda"? The big thing that I take away from the movie is all the parallels that get drawn between people and machines. I know that that was a big part of Soviet art, but in this it feels more fatalist (particularly in the birth/marriage/divorce/death segment intercut with industrial machines) than some kind of attempt to glorify the collective spirit of workers. I think all the patriotic stuff (shooting at swastikas, shots of the feats of Soviet athletes and the military) may have just been window dressing to try and make up for this so the filmmakers wouldn't get in any trouble. As it was, everything I've read about the movie says that it was "controversial" within the Soviet Union.