In 1962, during the Kruchev era, a mature woman with an important local position and nostalgic for the Stalin era, who lives with the privileges of having a Party card, will suddenly discover what the Soviet revolution has become, and how this unknown world affects her closest environment.
The film accurately reconstructs the aesthetics and characters of the Soviet cinema of the 50's. Watching it I was reminded of that jewel that is still 'When the storks pass by' (Letiat zhuravlí) (1957) by Mikhail Kalatozov, a clear, simple film, with pristine images, that is very critical of the war but that in the end recovers from its pain to raise its fist and defend the conquests of the Soviet people. In other words, it's a film without twists and turns, that's just the way it is and that's the way it is. However, the resemblance to 'Dear Comrades' ends there, in the aesthetics.
(Konchalovskiy is a director in tune with the current neo-Soviet system and one of its pampered artists. On IMdB we can read that the president of Russia took his film about Michelangelo Buonarroti on his visit to the Pope in Rome and organized a private screening as a gift to the pontiff. )
From the first hour of 'Dear Comrades' the director subjects his leading actress to an ordeal of pain and suffering, collapse of her values, fear for her own and for her own life, to show us the corruption of power, until the penultimate minute. What happens at the end? This is where you get the shock: when all seemed lost... Tachaaan! Things are fixed, as in a sweetened movie of the worst Hollywood. In fact the final sentence is 'Everything is going to be better'.
To make a political film without getting into politics (and especially without being critical) is a stylistic exercise, from which one can come out more or less successful, but it will never be a solid and brilliant work.
What we see is a long and tortuous journey to end up landing on Dorothy's yellow brick road. A disappointment.
The film accurately reconstructs the aesthetics and characters of the Soviet cinema of the 50's. Watching it I was reminded of that jewel that is still 'When the storks pass by' (Letiat zhuravlí) (1957) by Mikhail Kalatozov, a clear, simple film, with pristine images, that is very critical of the war but that in the end recovers from its pain to raise its fist and defend the conquests of the Soviet people. In other words, it's a film without twists and turns, that's just the way it is and that's the way it is. However, the resemblance to 'Dear Comrades' ends there, in the aesthetics.
(Konchalovskiy is a director in tune with the current neo-Soviet system and one of its pampered artists. On IMdB we can read that the president of Russia took his film about Michelangelo Buonarroti on his visit to the Pope in Rome and organized a private screening as a gift to the pontiff. )
From the first hour of 'Dear Comrades' the director subjects his leading actress to an ordeal of pain and suffering, collapse of her values, fear for her own and for her own life, to show us the corruption of power, until the penultimate minute. What happens at the end? This is where you get the shock: when all seemed lost... Tachaaan! Things are fixed, as in a sweetened movie of the worst Hollywood. In fact the final sentence is 'Everything is going to be better'.
To make a political film without getting into politics (and especially without being critical) is a stylistic exercise, from which one can come out more or less successful, but it will never be a solid and brilliant work.
What we see is a long and tortuous journey to end up landing on Dorothy's yellow brick road. A disappointment.