Our review of Two Prosecutors: A Terrible Image of the Kremlin
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Presented in competition at Cannes, Sergei Loznitsa's film depicts the scale and horror of the purges in Stalin's Russia. And urges us not to believe in miracles.
1937. The Union is more Soviet than ever. Purges rage. Human life is worth little. In the Kremlin , the little father of the people counts the corpses. In Bryansk prison, letters from unjustly incarcerated prisoners are burned in a stove. It takes hours. One of them escapes the pyre. It was written in blood.
A newly minted prosecutor, Alexander Kornev, somehow retrieves it and sets out to find the perpetrator. The man is languishing in cell 84 of building 5, the one where the socially harmful elements (ESN) are confined, an initialism designating a fairly large portion of the population. The director of the establishment is reluctant to grant the visit. The lawyer insists.
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Within his four walls, the captive is in a pitiful state. His body bears traces of torture. It's not a pretty sight. The naive man, still full of hope, is suffocating. It's the revolt of common sense. Everything was hidden from him. Without further ado. Struck dumb by the magnitude of...
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