La commissaire

During the Russian Revolution, the Red army enters an isolated town and leaves behind a female revolutionary, Klavdia, who has become unexpectedly pregnant. Klavdia stays with a Jewish family to have her baby.

A remarkable film, but one which was left unfinished. The director, Aleksandr Askoldov, is only credited with one movie, and it as if he put a lifetime of ideas into this single film.

A film on the same echelon as Kilmov's Come And See, Jancsó's The Red and The White, Shepitko's Ascent and the great Russian silents as well as the vanguard 60s cinema. This is one of those films where image and sound form a perfect marriage committing to screen an onslaught of ingenious, uproarious and emotional imagery marred with wonderful sound design and score, all strung together by ingenious editing. This is cinema.

The story is one of a Red Army woman officer during the Russian civil war, who ends up pregnant and is forced to live with a Ukrainian Jewish family, who has been used and abused countless times by the red and the whites. This is a story of humans coming together and setting aside their differences and understanding each other amongst suffering and strife. It is a test of loyalty to one's self, one's family, one's country.

Commissar was banned on its initial completion and writer/director Aleksandr Askoldov was kicked out of the Communist party and not allowed to work in the film business in any form again. It wasn't until 1988 that the ban was lifted and the soundtrack remastered/re-done along with a reconstruction of the picture, which was fairly intact. But not until now has it been wildly available so I really would urge anyone who enjoys Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Tarr or any of the before mentioned films to seek this one out. The US DVD from Kino is probably their best transfer yet; very pristine and sharp with no a lot of dirt or scratches, although it is from a PAL source so there are some ghosting effects on large movements, making the picture look simultaneously in slow mo and normal frame rate

One of the reasons that Commissar was initially banned in the Soviet Union was the use of religious imagery in the film. One example of this is shortly after Vavilova, the Commissar, has her baby. She walks by a graveyard, and the Russian Orthodox crosses are prominently featured in the shot. This can be interpreted to mean that Vavilova was forced to carry the baby, which she initially considers a burden, in the same manner that Christ had to carry His cross. It could also symbolize the idea of a life cycle, where Vavilova just had a child and is then seen at the cemetery, where she is surrounded by death. Another instance where crosses appear in the film was when Vavilova, Yefim (the father of the Jewish family she is forced to stay with), and his family were boarding up the windows and doors to prepare for the White Army soldiers that were coming. In one shot, Yefim is nailing a beam across a window, perpendicular to another board which clearly makes the shape of a cross.

The other major example of religion that can be found in the film is when Vavilova travels to the priest, and then to where the synagogue had been. She does this in order to have her baby baptized, or recognized in the Jewish religion. This would not have sat well with Soviet censors, seeing a strong female Commissar traveling in search of someone to baptize her child. I found this scene particularly moving because it seemed that Vavilova simply asked the priest for directions, and would rather have had her baby brought up to be Jewish. This shows the positive impact that Yefim and his family had on Vavilova during her stay.

We are indeed fortunate to view this film at all as it was banned in 1967 for being both pro-Semitic and anti-Bolshevist. Thanks to the spirit of Glasnost its director Aleksandr Askoldov who had been barred from film-making during the intervening twenty years(!) was able to piece it together from various copies. Its status now as a masterpiece of the seventh art is indisputable.

The sweeping camerawork, cross-cutting, composition and powerful imagery call to mind earlier masters of Soviet cinema. Alfred Schnittke's score is by turns searing and tender whilst the performances of the three principal actors are simply superlative.

Nonny Mordyukova as Klavdia, the title character, is mesmerising. Although her physique limited the parts she was offered, she was quite rightly considered one of Russia's finest. She is matched by impish Rolan Bykov as Yefim the tinsmith and the splendid Raisa Nedashkovskaya as his wife Maria.

Those who have seen the film will recognise that there are certain scenes which the ideologists of the regime at that time could not countenance and by refusing to toe the party line and make his film less humanistic, Askoldov paid a heavy price for his courageous stance.

This masterwork at least survives as a testament to both his talent and strength of character.

Adapted from Vasiliy Grossman's novel, "Komissar" (called "The Commissar" in English) was banned for twenty years in the Soviet Union; the censorship board considered it "pro-Zionist" due to its sympathetic portrayal of Jews. It portrays pregnant commissar Klavdia Vavilova (Nonna Mordyukova) staying with an impoverished Jewish family during the 1918-21 civil war. This is the sort of movie that shows the lives of forgotten people in the midst of world events; the father Yefim (Rolan Bykov) complains of how things have not really improved for the Jews since the revolution. I would say that that's something that historians should note.

As an FYI, the woman who is teaching the Russian cinema class here in Lewis & Clark College was at the premiere of "The Commissar" in Moscow in 1987.