Rating: A
Berlin-based Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa specializes in shining a light on Russian tyranny past and present in both documentaries (Maidan, The Invasion) and fictional films (My Joy, In the Fog).
His latest Two Prosecutors is set in 1937 during Stalin’s “great purge” of his Communist party enemies, and a year before the arrest of author Georgy Demidov, who spent 14 years in the gulag and on whose novella the film is based.
In an opening sequence, uniformed prison guards push an elderly man into a cell, which contains a small stove, a book of matches, and a sack of letters. The letters are addressed to Comrade Stalin from prisoners protesting their innocence and begging for clemency.
The rest of the film follows the first of the two prosecutors of the title, an idealistic recent law school graduate Kornev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), who is working for the prosecutors’ office.
One letter, written in blood, has made its way from the Bryansk prison in southwest Russia. Kornev sets out to interview the inmate and investigate the claims. The prison officers delay and make excuses, before agreeing to let him see the inmate, old-school socialist, Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko).
Kornev recognizes him as an esteemed speaker at his law school. In a long scene, Stepniak recounts his persecution and physical abuse, raising his trouser leg to reveal his bloodied and scarred shins.
By the time Kornev exits the prison gates, the young lawyer is convinced he has stumbled on a...
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