A Comissaria

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.

Throughout the movie, `Commissar', the innocence and naivety of the children allows them to be used as a medium through which many emotions can be conveyed. Sheltered from reality by their youth, the actions of children reflect their environment, unhindered as they are by experience, opinions, or understanding. The actions of a child are not filtered by taboos; the actions are pure and unadulterated regurgitations of the world around them.

The example that stands out the most in the film is that of the playful pogrom. The actions of the three children, taken against the fourth, are a horrible reflection of the world they live in. However, this is not the only such example. In fact, the same concept, used in the very next scene, shows a beautiful reflection of the strength and courage of a family caught in the maelstrom. As the bombs begin to fall, and the children all begin to wail within the cellar, it falls on Efim to hold everything together. He does this in an incredibly powerful scene, standing up in the middle of his family and beginning to dance. Instinctively the children stand up to join their father in an act they are obviously as familiar with as the pogrom, and are placated by mimicking the ritualistic, soothing moves of their father. Whether or not they understand the significance of the dance, just as they may or may not fully understand the pogrom, is irrelevant to them. All that is important is that it and their father are there to give them comfort.

Through the same general device, two very different ends are achieved. Many responses stressed the horrifically moving quality of the pogrom scene, but fail to mention the beauty and hope of a father dancing with his children, while the world rips itself apart around them.

Don't be tricked by the rating. This movie is wildly, unforgivably underrated on IMDb. To speak of its beauties would take me volumes. Suffice it to say: find it, if you can (it may be still available in good video stores, on VHS) and be enthralled by one-of-a-kind movie. As opposed to overrated 8+ 9+ c... like American Beauty or the Korean Oldboy and other movies full of either vapid pomposity or of guts and gore and blood and nonsense, Komissar is an extraordinarily beautiful and fluent meditation on human nature, war, religion, childhood, good and evil. Miss it at your own peril.

10 out of 10

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

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.