Two Prosecutors

Acclaimed Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa offers a stark portrait of Stalinist Russia in the 1930s. A novice prosecutor, as yet untouched by systemic corruption, investigates the case of an abused, unjustly incarcerated ‘Old Bolshevik’. Can the case be successfully presented to the Chief Prosecutor?

How safe was it to be a whistleblower in the Soviet Union of 1937? Loznitsa explores this question through the figure of young, idealistic prosecutor Kornyev who, almost miraculously, receives a plea for justice from an elderly, savagely injured prisoner, Stepniak. What Kornyev gradually uncovers is a vast network of corruption under Stalin, whereby the NKVD (secret police) has systematically arrested, tortured and silenced the previous, more benevolent wave of Old Bolsheviks. At every step, Kornyev’s investigation faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Rigorously stylised in its visual language – the camera does not move even once in almost two hours – this is an absorbing, unrelenting portrait of brutal social control. Sergei Loznitsa (Donbass, IFFR 2019) bases the film on a novella by Georgy Demidov, who was a political prisoner for 18 years. But it is not without touches of gallows humour. The two prosecutors of the title may refer to Kornyev and his climactic, face-to-face encounter with the elusive Procurator General Vyshinsky – or perhaps everyone in this world has become either a self-styled prosecutor or a hapless victim.

– Adrian Martin

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