East Side Story

Few people are likely aware that such an animal as the Eastern European musical ever existed; turns out a few dozen were made in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations over a forty-year stretch between 1930 and 1970--generally with extreme reluctance on the part of the government-sponsored film review boards--and East Side Story features hilarious, unforgettable clips from just about all of them. It also features a lot of informative but nonetheless tedious interviews with various filmmakers and film scholars, without any kind of meaningful analysis of what we're seeing. For example, director Dana Ranga hammers home the notion that musicals made in Eastern Europe served primarily as propaganda, yet it apparently never occurs to her to wonder whether the same was true of the classic American musicals that the Soviets and their fellows strove to emulate. (Here's a clue: Yes.) I can easily imagine a far better film devoted to the topic, but this one will do. Recommended. (M. D'Angelo)