Written and Directed by Sergei Loznitsa | 117 min | ▲▲▲▲ | The Criterion Channel
This is a painterly and deliberate satire/procedural on authoritarian bureaucracy, set in Stalinist Russia in 1937. As a deep dive into the way bureaucracy crushes freedom at a time of fascism, this is the most clear-eyed cinematic example I’ve seen offered since maybe The Death of Stalin, and while it’s nowhere near as funny it does offer a similar, chilling level of apparatchik absurdity.
Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) is a youthful Soviet prosecutor with a pugilist’s nose. A letter he was never meant to receive comes to him from an old Bolshevik, Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko), locked up in a prison some distance from Moscow on what he says are trumped up charges. He accuses the local NKVD (a predecessor to the KGB) of corruption. One of Kornyev’s duties is to investigate these kinds of accusations. He’s within his rights as prosecutor is to be able to interview Stepniak, and as he does he gets a mouthful of red tape.
Almost the first full hour of this film is concerned with Kornyev trying to get access to Stepniak at the prison. He is continually delayed, dismissed, and discouraged, and yet he continues his mission. The way he’s treated is both wildly frustrating and hilarious — we get to witness the almost ridiculous efforts meant to keep this prisoner at a distance from our man.
When they finally do meet, and Kornyev sees the evidence of the way Stepniak has been treated, he immediately heads to Moscow to meet with an official further up the ladder to impart his concerns. That’s not much easier. Of course, the prosecutor’s determination to do the right thing in the face of convoluted and devious machinations is both admirable and incredibly foolish, but he’s too young, too headstrong, and too naive to see the trouble he’s attracting.
Loznitsa is a Ukrainian filmmaker, and his picture, while set almost 90 years ago, feels scarily relatable to anyone paying attention to where we are in global geopolitics. Not everyone has The Criterion Channel, but its films like this one that make a subscription worthwhile.
