You can feel the weight of Soviet tyranny without wielding a hammer and a sickle Two prosecutorsThis is a solemn Stalinic drama from Sergei Loznitsa, a metaphor for now oppressed Russia.

This slow-burning story of political injustice is impeccably guided and impressive, full of atmosphere, especially at the height of the Stalinian purgation, the Soviet suffocation, claustrophobia. For those familiar with the period, nothing in the film is based on physicist and Gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, which seems surprising. But the Cannes competition entry is more about journey than the destination, revealing the feeling of living when rampant authoritarianism eliminates personal freedom.

The first photo of the film is the opening and closing of the prison door, which is a clear prologue to the rest of the elaborate narrative by Loznitsa. Lens by Oleg mutu (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days) In a 1:1.33 format similar to the box, the movie was shot in color, but can also be made in black and white, which depicts a world without warmth or hope.

Loznitsa is certainly no stranger to this context, exploring the dismal side of Russia and his native Ukraine, which is seamlessly transferred between novels (My happiness,,,,, In the fog,,,,, Donbas) and documentary (Maidan,,,,, Activity,,,,, Chapter YAR. pertext). Two prosecutors Perhaps his most harshest film to date - with a tight control of the Soviet people as NKVD (Stalin's Secret Police in the 1930s and 40s). It's not always easy to sit, as it moves from one suffocating situation to another. However, it gradually built on a powerful statement of the tyranny of Russia at that time and now.

A slow-burning opening shows that prisoners are gathered in the yard. This year was 1937, and these people all looked like they had experienced hell. (Indeed, in the next scene, one of them fell off the scaffolding and died, and his body was quickly dragged away.) The oldest of them (Ivgeny Terletsky) was sent alone to a cell where he was responsible for burning letters from his fellow countrymen. He decided to be the first of many courages, and he decided to save a letter in which one of the prisoners claimed he had been unjustly imprisoned and asked for legal counsel.

This sequence is illustrative, emphasizing pure justice in a system designed to abandon resistance at all levels from the bottom to the top. This is the trajectory adopted by the film itself, gradually following the effects of breach of authority from the intestine of the provincial prison all the way to one of Moscow’s highest offices.

Our guide through the crackdown on the bureaucracy was a bold young prosecutor named Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov) who received smuggling messages and appeared in prison to deal with this situation. From a series of cruel guards to dismissive guards (Vytautas Kaniusonis), he faces every step of hostility, who keeps trying to get rid of him, and finally to the Soviet prosecutor-general (Anatoli Beliy), who, after the longest wait, received him in the office.

What's fascinating Two prosecutors No one directly rejected Kornav, nor would he let him know what they really think. In this world, everyone is so afraid of the slightest word or behavior that can put them in prison or possibly Siberia that they keep holding their tongues as they try to develop strategies through the system. In the novice of Stalin's 4D Soviet chess competition under terror, Coenf was the only one who really spoke his mind, so it's no surprise that what happened to him ended up happening.

Ironically, Kornev believes that he saved the Marxist revolution that the Soviet Union was intended to embody. The prisoner who wrote the letter, Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko), was an old Bolshevik worker who was part of the 1917 uprising and was tortured in prison for years. By trying to bring the case of revolutionary heroes to the highest power ranks, Kennef foolishly believes that he is fighting the regime he would have served.

The compelling Kuznetsov portrays the prosecutor as a wise and stubborn lawyer who is also the last person to the communist joke under Stalin. This is most evident in the late sequence (and possibly the highlight of the movie) when Kornev brought the train back from Moscow to his hometown of Briansk, riding with two merchants (Valentin Novopolskij, dmitrij denisiuk), who he thought might be NKVD agents. After some hesitation, he decided to drink and have fun with them, enjoying improvised musical performances, as the train was always at night, not realizing the fate that had been stored for him.

Loznitsa is much less than the naive Korvev, and the director ends up leaving the audience on the same prison door where his film begins. journey Two prosecutors Therefore, it is a round circle - a winding round trip between rocks and hard ground. This was the life of the Soviet Union at that time, and it was no secret that Russia was almost no different under Vladimir Putin. Loznitsa reflects on the past here, but for anyone who cares about seeing, he holds a mirror until now.