This is a film of its time, that is, the time of Stalinist socialist realism. In order not to make a long retreat, let us designate axiomatically the quasi-classical background of this art, which, as it were, is not even correct art, but exemplary, depicting life in all its “truthfulness”. Truthfulness is a class approach to material that puts everything in its place. So, not the most unambiguous image of Gobsek in this film is straightened in the right direction, as well as the plot itself, which has been significantly amended, and the finale is completely reinterpreted in the logic of naturalism: “the old spider died – long live the new spider.”
Yes, the background of the character in the film suffers. The first (i.e., close-up) plane here is the so-called social person, which, unlike the face of the individual or existential, must bear the clear seal of society, the stratum to which the bearer of this very person belongs. The filmmakers tried their best, affecting the satirical side of the issue. Noses stretch, and cheeks float; faces become rounder than pancakes, and eyes turn into slits, from which the ugliness of medium and large capital looks at the world - so or so depicted not only the main character, but also some others, the legacy of Eisenstein is not in vain. Throughout the film there is a metaphor for the identification of human and animal, Gobsek is both a spider and a rat, and something completely unclassifiable (we will give an example of a scene where a curved predatory hand of the hero appears due to the high back of the chair - it is time to recall Nosferat Murnau, a similar effect is obvious). However, oddly enough, this is not like a cheap caricature of the avant-garde of the 20s. The fact is that the actors play more than necessary from a role in such a film. Because of this, it looks better than many films of the time, where the opposition of the bourgeoisie and the suffering people looked quite repulsive in its unnaturalness.
But it is worth noting that there are few people in the film. It is clearly oriented in terms of the opposition of the aristocratic and the bourgeois world. The world first rots, there is only vice and dishonor. Therefore, sometimes the maxims of Hobsek seem quite correct. But as soon as the sentence of the squandered heirs of the feudal lords is completed, Gobsek again appears in all his ruthless guise, he revels in his sadism and clearly loves the suffering of other people. The point is in his mind, which at one time was put on the "saving of a penny" and for many years learned to develop virtuoso schemes not of deception, but rather of extracting into the light of that foreign vicious, proving which, Gobsek seems to indulge himself. It's actually a fiction that the film reveals with the straightforwardness of a lumberjack. Once again, the film is not a masterpiece, the story of Gobsek is in many ways too dotted because of the small footage and in this point obviously inferior to the literary pretext. Nevertheless, the film is made very holistically and not for the sake of the "tick". The then very modest volume of domestic film production did not allow to drive outright ideological hacking, which is checked by this tape.