Dir: Sergey Loznitsa, France/Germany/Netherlands/Latvia/Romania/Lithuania/Ukraine,2025, 118mins/

Russian/Ukrainian with subtitles

Cast: Alexander Kuznetsov, Anatoliy Beliy, Dmitrijus Denisiukas, Valentin Novopolskij,

Review by Carol Allen

The Russian revolution, which should in theory have brought freedom to the masses, instead created a tyranny even crueller than the dictatorship of the Tsars.

This film, set in the Stalinist times of the late 30s, reminds us of just how cruel and how implacable that tyranny was.

Based on a novel by Soviet dissident Georgy Demidov and directed by Ukrainian Sergey Loznitsa, the film tells the story of idealistic young prosecutor Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), who happens across a letter written in blood on a piece of cardboard. It has somehow found its way out of the brutal Bryansk high security prison where the ageing writer is just one of the many innocent prisoners being brutally tortured to death by the system. Kornyev vows to investigate – a brave but dangerous decision.

When he turns up at the prison, the authorities discourage him by keeping him waiting for hours and suggesting that the man he wants see is infectious. When he does get to see the prisoner Stepniak (Aleksandr Fillipenko), the young prosecutor is shocked by the horror and injustice of what he learns. Back in Moscow he goes to report his findings to the chief prosecutor ((Anatoliy Beliy), who also predictably keeps him waiting for hours – standard treatment for anyone who might rock the Soviet boat – and then listens unblinkingly to his report. After which Kornyev experiences a series of strange and unsettling encounters with men who may or may not be whom they claim to be.

Sent back to Bryansk to continue his investigation, on the train he encounters a pair of very jolly coves, Vasily (Dmitrij Denisiuk) and Petya (Valentin Novopolskij), who claim to be engineers and insist on sharing their food and their vodka with him. But in the nightmare world of Soviet Russia, is anyone who they claim to be or are Big Brother Joe Stalin and his cohorts everywhere?

This is a very disturbing film, conducted in a series of almost stately sequences, each one building on the disquiet of the previous and shot in a washed out colour palette which at times is almost black and white and which just adds to the atmosphere of chill and unease.

In the light of the current world situation, this film is a dire reminder of the horrors of totalitarianism, whatever the language and culture of the tyrant may be.