Alexander Litvinov (1898-1977) was one of the most dedicated expedition film-makers in the early Soviet period. Having developed an interest in cinema, travel, and adventure in his native Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where he served as film administrator, director, scriptwriter, and actor at the republic’s nascent film studio, Litvinov took part in several films on workers’ leisure and work, as well as “red detective” and adventure films. In 1927 he joined the Moscow-based Sovkino studio, and one year later, inspired by a short article in Vechernaia Moskva [Evening Moscow] on the Udege tribe of the Russian Far East, Litvinov and a small crew – cameraman Pavel Mershin and assistant Yefim Feldman – set out on a distant and exciting expedition.
The expedition resulted in two features, both in 1928: Lesnie liudi [Forest People], and Po debriam Ussuriskovo kraia [Through the Ussuri Region]. Transporting the audience over thousands of kilometres, Forest People portrays the Udege community as territorially compact, remote, isolated, and self-sufficient. Litvinov worked in co-operation with Vladimir Arsenyev (1872-1930), a former military officer, topographer, self-trained ethnographer, and naturalist, and a well-known explorer of the Ussuri region, whose travel book Through the Ussuri Region was favourably received and has been continuously republished in the Soviet Union. Its main character, Arsenyev’s guide Dersu, was later powerfully portrayed in Akira Kurosawa’s film adaptation, Dersu Uzala (1975).
The first part of Litvinov’s film uses the style of an ethnographic present, documenting subsistence practices and household activities. The recurrent use of medium shots and close-ups creates an illusion of intimacy with the protagonists, and facilitates direct observation. To achieve the impression of observational immersion, Litvinov engaged with the community and accustomed the Udege to the presence of the camera. As a result, the viewer is offered an intimate view of everyday life among the Udege, including scenes of them interacting with the crew and the camera. The second part of the film demonstrates a “progressive” transformation of a traditional community to a “modern” ethnic unit, demonstrating the “success” of the new regime. Young Udege women and men at the Khabarovsk Pedagogical University exemplify the goal of the Soviet Union’s so-called “indigenization policy”, which aimed at the creation of fully loyal national proletarian cadres. A mixed-gender student group of various nationalities emphasizes equality as an important component of this ideological programme. Thanks to the external help of benevolent cultural mediators, the Udege are gradually transformed from an isolated tribe of hunter-gatherers in the primordial forest to a sedentary, agricultural community integrated into the Soviet economy.
Litvinov’s first expedition films earned him international success and favourable comparison with Robert Flaherty. But rather than perpetuating the illusion of screen realism and
“life caught unaware,” Litvinov includes multiple references to the relationship between the filming and the filmed. Towards the end of Forest People, Arsenyev takes the crew’s local guide Suntsai to the cinema, where he watches Litvinov’s film Through the Ussuri Region. The episode allows the protagonists to encounter their cinematic doubles as film characters. The film-makers’ trained gaze is contrasted with Suntsai’s “naïve” viewing, exemplified by his excitement and expressive body language upon recognizing himself onscreen. But Suntsai’s approval, which Litvinov quotes in his memoirs in broken Russian – “Everything filmed truly” – subverts the screen hierarchy of the backward versus the civilized, and exposes a complex web of mutual projections and anticipations.

Oksana Sarkisova