Starring Yelena Kuzmina, Nikolai Kryuchkov, and Lev Sverdlin, the story centers on a love triangle between two castaways and a woman from a collective farm on a Soviet Azerbaijani island in the Caspian Sea.
After their ship is capsized by a storm in the Caspian Sea, sailor Yussuf and mechanic Alyosha cling to the wreckage.
Taken to a nearby island off the coast of Soviet Azerbaijan, Yussuf and Alyosha are welcomed into the local Lights of Communism collective farm.
Alyosha promises to stay for the entire season, and going off to inspect a motor boat together, the two engage in flirtatious behavior.
She entreats Yussuf to imagine himself being called into service by commanding military officer Kliment Voroshilov, and how devastating it would be to discover that the woman he loves has grown tired of awaiting his return.
Although Yussuf declares that this revelation does nothing to temper his passionate feelings, he acknowledges the virtue in Mariya's decision to remain faithful to her fiancé.
In what was a rare opportunity of the time, Rosenbaum was able to see the film at a screening held by Facets Cinémathèque, as a part of a retrospective titled "The Extraordinary Mr. Barnet".
In a perfect four-star review, he praised By the Bluest of Seas as an exquisite piece of filmmaking, yet one bearing qualities that are difficult to articulate.
[2] "It somehow defies credibility...But Barnet pulls it off because the naive duo and their love interest are all believably portrayed as pure Soviet bumpkins" Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews also noticed a dichotomy within the film's tone, writing both that the film is "strangely uplifting" and that it contains "some darker moments to reflect on.
"[5] He furthered his examination to other areas, asserting that outbreaks of song come across as both random and "natural", and that the story's resolution works despite being contrived.
[7] Although Happiness contains a "surreal strangeness" absent from Barnet's work, both films, wrote Friel, eschew the "government-sanctioned social realism" that defined the era of Soviet filmmaking in which they were made, in favor of a more "joyous" and "playful" tone.
[7] Rosenbaum has voiced similar sentiments, writing that "Barnet was too instinctive and physical a director to fit comfortably within any prescribed form of socialist realism".
[1][2] In a seven out of ten star review, Nield suggested that Barnet's focus rather lay with technique and the romantic entanglement of the film's main characters.
[4] These stringent expectations of conformity caused problems for Barnet, who purportedly drew the ire of Joseph Stalin.
It is this which fuels his visual and aural flourishes, to the point where they can transcend the social realism demanded of this kind of Soviet cinema."
Noting the views of Luc Moullet, who contended that eroticism is always linked together with right wing ideology, Rosenbaum countered that By the Bluest of Seas successfully sexualizes the left-wing ideologies of collectivism and socialism, and dubbed the Caspian Sea, "a perfect emotional metaphor" for this.
[1] He pointed to a segment in which the audio drops out, creating a heightened sense of drama, as an example of how Barnet used "aural flourishes" in his storytelling.
[1] Illustrating Barnet's skill as a visual storyteller, Nield pointed to the simplistic manner in which the opening scene is told, the "rocking, ill-angled" cinematography used to capture a storm, and the abstract conveyance of time through the instant abandonment of a crowded hall.
[1] Nield wrote that in Barnet's most creative moments, By the Bluest of Seas could be compared to Jean Vigo's 1934 masterpiece L'Atalante.
[4] The Ruscico release contains two discs, the second of which contains text-based annotations filled with production and reception information, thematic analysis, and anecdotes from the cast and crew.
Anthony Nield of Digital Fix reviewed this release, giving the video and audio presentation, as well as the quality of bonus features, seven out of ten stars.