Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Andrei Konchalovsky: "Abundance does not make man happy. He makes him an animal."

Director Andrei Konchalovsky touches on his film "Dear Friends!" In one of the most painful episodes in post-Stalin Soviet history. Everyone was afraid then, but he argues that for a person to be human - a shortage is required. "There was a lack of information but we read everything. We knew everything. The lack immediately creates curiosity and interest, arouses hunger"
Director Andrei Konchlovsky's film "Dear Friends!" Opens with an anthem of the Soviet Union. Its sounds are carried over the city of Novocherkassk on June 1, 1962 and also penetrate the room where Ludmila Siomina, a senior member of the municipal committee of the Communist Party, wakes up next to her lover - the head of the municipal committee.

Through Ludmila's Eyes, played by actress Yulia Vysotskaya (the director's wife), a workers' protest strike and violent repression in the early 1960s are described. Towards the end of the film, after her life is turned upside down and her belief in the rightness of the way of communism is shattered, Ludmila bursts into another energetic Soviet song - "Spring March". This soundtrack also contains the director's self-irony: the lyrics to the two songs at the opening and end were written by his father, the senior Soviet poet Sergei Mikhalkov.

Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Dear Comrades!” dramatizes the deadly events of June 2, 1962, when Soviet government forces fired into a crowd of unarmed protesters in the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk. It took 30 years for the tragedy to be revealed and reckoned with: The bodies were buried in secret and all news of the bloody crackdown was meticulously suppressed, never to be officially investigated and brought to light until 1992, after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Another three decades would pass before the massacre would be memorialized in Konchalovsky’s blistering new film, the latest fascinating object in a career that has swerved unpredictably from Russia to Hollywood and back again. (The movie has been chosen to represent Russia in the Oscar race for international feature.)

Konchalovsky’s previous picture, “Paradise” (2016), was an unconventionally structured Holocaust drama filmed in boxy black-and-white. Although set roughly two decades after the Second World War, “Dear Comrades!” has the same stark, sharply etched beauty, with a gleaming monochrome palette and square-shaped, deep-focus compositions (the cinematographer is Andrey Naidenov) that evoke a powerful sense of confinement. It also features “Paradise’s” superb star, Julia Vysotskaya, here playing Lyuda, a Communist Party functionary and Novocherkassk city official. Misguided, often loathsome and always vividly human, she’s the ideal antihero for a movie about how even seemingly unshakable ideologies can collapse in the face of catastrophe.

We first see Lyuda untangling herself from a tryst with a colleague, Loginov (Vladislav Komarov), though theirs is the opposite of a postcoital daze. The early morning air is already charged with tension and urgency: Lyuda needs to get to the market before it empties out, and the two of them speak with cold anxiety of rising food prices, increased production quotas at the city’s electric locomotive factory and the looming possibility of a workers’ strike. (It’s June 1, the day before the massacre.) Lyuda grumbles about the party’s general direction under Khrushchev, reminiscing about how much better things were under Stalin, whom she idolizes. Loginov reminds her of her privileged position, which grants her access to coveted goods, and warns her of the consequences of not toeing the party line.

The couple’s tetchy exchange will play out in different ways, again and again, in a movie in which silence and denial prove crucial to one’s survival. And their illicit relations (Loginov is married) furnish an unforced metaphor for a system in which the powerful continually betray the workers with whom they’ve expressed solidarity.

When tensions threaten to erupt, Lyuda stands up in a room full of male officials and zealously demands that unruly protesters be punished to the fullest extent of the law. She doesn’t realize exactly what she’s calling for — and what horrors the authorities are capable of — until the next day, when thousands descend on the center of Novocherkassk and soon find themselves pelted with gunfire.

The massacre, which arrives at roughly the halfway mark, is filmed with swift, ruthless efficiency. The black-and-white images blunt the force of the carnage but also make it easier to process; we don’t see the red blood that has been burned into the ground by the hot June sun, though we do see a fresh layer of asphalt being poured over it almost immediately afterward. The state’s coverup has wasted no time getting started.

And it’s the comprehensiveness of that coverup, the practiced speed with which the government’s suppressive apparatus roars to life, that most fascinates Konchalovsky. Healthcare workers are made to sign nondisclosure agreements, denying that anything out of the ordinary happened June 1-2. The wounded hide out at home, refusing to seek medical attention for fear of being arrested. It would almost be funny if it all weren’t so ghastly.

The levels of official erasure are appalling; the ease with which everyone goes along with it is even more so. One person who refuses to buckle under quite so easily is Lyuda, whose factory-worker daughter, Svetka (Yulia Burova), has gone missing amid the protests. Fearing the worst, Lyuda embarks on a harrowing quest through blood-spattered hallways and bureaucratic loopholes, desperate to find her daughter alive or at least obtain confirmation of her death. Her unlikely companion on this journey is a KGB agent, Viktor (Andrei Gusev), whose cold glare softens in Lyuda’s presence, and who is moved to help her for reasons that are never expressed. The further Lyuda goes and the more she discovers, the more her confidence in her party ideals crumbles.

Vysotskaya’s remarkable performance shows us nothing heroic about Lyuda; as a longtime pillar of a thoroughly rotten system, she’s simply able to navigate that system more deftly than most. But you feel a growing sense of kinship with her regardless, as she’s propelled forward by her obvious love for a daughter from whom she was recently estranged. The early scenes of Lyuda and Svetka together at home, clashing bitterly over political and generational differences, have a stinging emotional intensity; meanwhile, Lyuda’s aging father (Sergei Erlish) sits in a corner, wearing his old military uniform and waiting for death. In this simple tableau of domestic discord, you see a multigenerational microcosm of Russian history, the dreams and delusions of the past and the soon-to-be-broken promises of the future jostling alongside each other in the same enclosed space.

Konchalovsky (who wrote the script with Elena Kiseleva) barely moves the camera in these moments, or indeed through the entirety of “Dear Comrades!,” in which sequences tend to accumulate through a series of rapid-fire cuts from one setup to the next. (The sharp editing is by Sergei Taraskin and Karolina Maciejewska.) The effect, visually, is one of limited mobility and entrapment, but it doesn’t limit the scope of what Konchalovsky is able to show us. His camera seems to be everywhere: in front of the crowds marching across a bridge before all hell breaks loose, in a tunnel through which fleeing officials make their escape and on a lonely rooftop where hope is briefly rekindled.

Konchalovsky has said that he meant to recapture the look of films from the ’60s, but these crisp, high-contrast images speak to another impulse as well: to look into a past shrouded in the fog of delusion and doublespeak, and to see through it with a clarity that burns and even heals.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Extreme Heat Wave Sweeps Across Europe, Hitting Record Temperatures
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
Robots Compete in Football Tournament in China Amid Injuries
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Germany Votes to Suspend Family Reunification for Asylum Seekers
Budapest Pride Parade Draws 200,000 Participants Amid Government Ban
Southern Europe Experiences Extreme Heat
Xiaomi's YU7 SUV Launch Garners Record Pre-Orders Amid Market Challenges
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Lavish Wedding in Venice
Russia Launches Largest Air Assault on Ukraine Since Invasion
Massive Anti-Government Protests Erupt in Belgrade
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Hungary's Prime Minister Criticizes NATO's Role in Ukraine
EU TO HUNGARY: LET THEM PRIDE OR PREP FOR SHADE. ORBÁN TO EU: STAY IN YOUR LANE AND FIX YOUR OWN MESS.
Hungarian Scientist to Conduct 30 Research Experiments on the International Space Station
×