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How others will see it. This is a film for the technician: the photography, cinematography, and editing disciple. Those interested in Russian life a decade after the Red Revolution might also find this movie watchable.
Most people, however, will be unable to sit through this brisk collage of images. Without characters or a story, it is like an existential documentary. As Marie Antoinette might say, "Let them watch Titanic!"
How I felt about it. I watched the movie with the mute button on. This is because the soundtrack, as is the case with most silent films, is not original to the film. In fact, it was composed decades later, and has to be considered a separate artistic entity. My understanding is that the DVD has a soundtrack more contemporary to the film from the 1930s, which is better but still not completely authentic.
You might be curious whether The Man with a Movie Camera is a propaganda film. It is, after all, made within (and perhaps funded by) the Soviet state. But this film is more or less apolitical. It merely expresses the cameraman's hunger for real-life cinematic experiences.
Thus, you have the mundane and the unusual. A woman washes her face, and gets her hair done. Another woman gives birth. Steelworkers labor in what seems to be Hades' domain. An ambulance transports a man with a severe head injury. Here's a wedding, there's a funeral procession.
Then there are shots of telephones, typewriters, trains, trolley cars, automobiles, factories, escalators, telephone switchboards, bridges, buildings, etc. As well as people criss-crossing busy marketplaces. These aren't presented as socialistic triumphs, but are merely something interesting to briefly film.
If the film lacks cohesion, it's because there is no attempt to tell a story. This is not Koyaanisqutsi, which has a vaguely anti-industrial attitude. The cameraman is all in favor of industrial progress if it gives him something new to document on film. All movies have a message. The message here is, "Look what I can do with a camera. Ain't I clever!"
Well, the director, cameraman, and editor are clever, and we are thankful that they documented snippets of late 1920s Russian life for future generations to ponder at. Propaganda is absent, so Stalin is neither to be admired, feared, or reviled. The mood is optimistic, probably because the cameraman was getting to do what he most wanted to do: film cool stuff, without anyone saying no, not here, not now.
Why was this film made in Russia and not the West? Probably because there was no money to make from it. The capitalistic West targets movies to specific audiences. In 1928, apparently, the Soviet state threw money like seeds, and hoped that something would blossom. This film did.