DEAR COMRADES / DOROGIE TOVARISHCHI (2020)

Now 82, after a career of near comic unevenness (back to co-writing early Andrei Tarkovsky masterpieces IVAN’S CHILDHOOD/’62 and ANDREI RUBLEV/’66), writer/director Andrey Konchalovskiy has rarely hit the target as squarely as he does here, vivifying a real-life horror of Soviet Life 1962 when a workers’ strike in the industrial town of Novocherkassk became a riot and then a massacre.  Perfectly rendered in design and execution, down to the use of squarish Academy Ratio and b&w cinematography typical of USSR MosFilm at the time, with the attitudes of the people just as well captured.  Yuliya Vysotskaya carries the film as a mid-level town official who smells panic in the air as wages go down, prices go up and basic supplies grow scarce.  Though not for her, her privileged position lets her skip the lines for backrooms where provisions are reserved for Party Officials, especially if they have something to offer in return.  But when her rebellious daughter gets caught up in the demonstrations as Town Hall is rushed by workers and sacked (we could be watching the January 6th D.C. insurrection), and either the Army or KGB snipers begin shooting, her ordered world and tough views on law, order & consequences crumble against a single parent’s fear for an only child.  Searching for her possibly dead daughter with a surprisingly sympathetic KGB officer, the trail already fading away thru State Sanctioned coverup (even blood stained pavement gone under fresh asphalt), she has to confront her own view of what a Workers’ Paradise in a post-Stalin era means.  Stunning work up & down the line here, loaded with lethal irony and personal conundrums on the future: her’s, her daughter’s, the Party’s.  A late career triumph, devastating, thought-provoking stuff.

DOUBLE-BILL: Best of Konchalovskiy’s Hollywood days: RUNAWAY TRAIN/’85 with strong turns from Jon Voight & Eric Roberts.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Not only did Konchalovskiy somehow get this thru official Russian funding channels, it even got the official nod to vie for Best International Feature at the 2021 Oscars.