Comment by beedeebeedee

That is true to an extent, but Soviet films are not all the same. Great artists like Bondarchuk were able to still tell compelling stories despite the political constraints of his time. Even Seventeen Moments of Spring, which was commissioned to influence the Soviet public to have a more positive view of the KGB, managed to tell a meaningful and very human story. Tarkovsky’s Sci-Fi films are also great and can hardly be said to be state propaganda even if they were considered acceptable enough to be made public. Many Soviet films are heavy handed and wooden propaganda movies (like the ones by Ozerov), but not all.