Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19372 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-06
• Formats: Black & White, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian
• Running time: 105 minutes

On the DVD
Director Aleksandr Askoldov and the controversy over Commissar archival interviews, Askoldov biography, documents, letters
Video interview with Actress Raisa Nedashkovskaya
A film press announcement
Three video stills galleries
Cast / Crew filmographies
Biography of Vasili Grossman
Languages
Spoken: Original Russian (Mono), Original Russian (DTS), Original Russian (5.1),
English voice over (5.1), French Voice Over (5.1)
Optional subtitles: Russian, English, French, German, Spanish and Italian

Synopsis
The Commissar of the title, played by Nonna Mordyukova, is a Soviet functionary wielding power over a remote Jewish village. Neither she nor the villagers care for the status quo, but over a period of several weeks both come to accept the situation and to establish a detente. The film's pro-Semitism was not entirely in keeping with Soviet policy of the 1960s, thus the film was shelved and hidden from the general public. Only with the thawing of East-West relationships, and the political upheaval in Russia itself, was The Commissar deemed "safe" for general consumption. The film was finally distributed in 1988, twenty years after its completion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

DVD Menu

• Disc #1 -- Commissar
  • Play
  • Chapters
  • Language Selection
    • Russian (Mono)
    • Russian DTS
    • Russian 5.1
    • English 5.1 (Voice Over)
    • French 5.1 (Voice Over)
  • Subtitles
    • Russian
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Spanish
    • Italian
    • Subtitles Off
  • Extras
    • V. Grossman
    • Filmographies
      • Alexander Askoldov - Director, Scriptwriter
      • Valery Ginzburg - Cameraman
      • Sergey Serebrennikov - Production Designer
      • Alfred Schnittke - Composer
      • Rolan Bykov - Actor
      • Otar Koberidze - Actor
      • Nonna Mordyukova - Actress
      • Raissa Nedashkovskaya - Actress
      • Vassily Shukshin - Actor
    • Photo Gallery
    • Stills From the Film
  • Back
    • Pyccka�
    • English
    • Fran�ais
• Disc #2 -- Commissar
  • A. Askoldov
    • Interview
    • From the Archive
      • Nonna Mordyukova
      • Raisaa Nedashkovskaya
      • Rolan Bykov
    • Filmography
    • Letters
      • Case history of Comrade A.YA. Askoldov
      • To the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committe
    • Documents
  • Interview With R. Nedashkovskaya
  • Press
  • Awards
  • Photo Album "Recognition"
  • Subtitles
    • Russian
    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Spanish
    • Italian
    • Subtitles Off

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece, forbidden for 20 years
During the russian civil war, the soviets occupy the Ukraine. Sometimes the "whites" move forward, killing and expulsing the population, sometimes the Ukrainians strike back. Destroyed villages, deserted homes, fortified houses where the inhabitants take shelter behind bullet-riddled walls.

The soviet commissar Klavdia Vavilova (Nonna Mordyukova) takes a rest and goes to the sauna before consigning a deserter to the firing-squad. She is expecting her baby soon , three months in the saddle, and the doctor refused her an abortion, even at pistol-point. She can not go on, and so the commander of her troup announces to Yefim Mahzannik (Rolan Bykov): "Make room". Mahzannik, a jewish taylor is not enthusiastic to welcome a soviet commissar under his roof. His large family is already living in just one room and he promises his wife: "Don't worry, I'll chase her away."

But he doesn't. On the contrary: the family shares their meagre provision with her. Bread, potatoes, tea, even sugar is rationed. She gets her host's slippers, he makes her a dress, and the entire family helps her with the delivery of her baby-son. Proudly she goes on a walk with her new shoes and lets her baby get baptized in the ruins of a former church.

She is discovered by her old troup. The "whites" are advancing, and they suggest that she should join the hospital train. Her hosts know that their enemies are near. They raise barricades to protect their homes and their synagogue ("They will look for a scapegoat. And who is always guilty in this world? I ask you: who?"). They remember the massacre of the Boers and the Armenians ("But who will cry if I'm no longer there?"). Klavdia tries to console them: "One day people will work in peace and harmony". But in a hellish vision she sees the fate of the jewish people: long rows of fugitives, concentration camps...She gives her son the breast one more time and tells him who his parents were. Then she joins her troup, leaving him behind. Mahzannik finds the abandoned child and wonders: what kind of person was she?

Made in 1967 this film was not released at all, but moldered on a shelf for 20 years, until mosfilm restored it and showed it during the glasnost-era to a fascinated audience. It won the special prize of the jury and the silver bear at the berlinale 1988. The reason of this ban is obvious: this is a pro-semitic film that shows the occupation of the Ukraine in less than heroic terms.

The Soviet Union may have been behind the iron curtain, but it was certainly not behind the moon: Askoldov is not only heir to an impressive film history (Eisenstein), but clearly inspired by such contemporaries as Pasolini and Bergman. Helped by his cameraman Valeri Ginsburg he produces enormous set-pieces and unforgettable images. Little boys and girls exercising with guns, sandstorms in the desert, whipped horses, harnessed horses, fleeing without their riders, naked skin, sweat, people making love in front of a gigantic cannon. There are surreal shots, like the one where soldiers "reap" the desert sand with scythes or the one where thirsty men drink from a river. The camera turns a 180 degrees, and the river "drinks" them...

There are scenes from a jewish wedding, where the couple starts a race with their horse-carriage - against another couple, a christian one. When Yefim senses the extermination of his family, he starts a macabre "dance of death" as if to defy their destiny. Two scenes are especially shocking: Yefim's children playing "rape" and tying a frightend little girl on a swing, and a young russian soldier, playfully "shooting" the children with his finger. We fear what will happen when he comes back...

All these sequences are genially underscored by Alfred Schnittke's groaning and atonal music.

The performances are nothing short of brilliant. Mordyukova - a tall, plump woman, dressed like a man and forced to behave like one. When she changes in a dress and holds her baby in her arms, she becomes unbelievably beautiful, like a madonna. Her goodbye to her child ("Your mother was Vavilova") could melt a stone. Bykov is the ancestor of Topol in "Fiddler on the roof" and Roberto Begnini in "Life is beautiful". Need I say more? This film is gripping and suspenseful, a genuine masterpiece.

A Tale From The Russian Civil War
Based on the story "In The Town Of Berdichev" by the great Ukrainian Jewish writer Vasily Grossman (author of "Life And Fate"), this film was originally shot in 1967. It was "shelved" for over 20 years by being denied funds for its completion, finally coming to light in the Glasnost era.

It concerns a woman commissar (military political officer) named Vavilova in a Red Army cavalry unit during the Russian Civil War of 1918-20. She finds herself pregnant to a fellow officer who has recently been killed, and is billeted with a poor Jewish tinker, Magazannik, his wife and six kids. From her initial hostility to her new surroundings, she eventually becomes involved in the life of the family, before giving birth to her child - and then disappearing to join the first Red Army unit that passes her way.

It's not difficult to understand why the Soviet authorities didn't want this film to be seen. Besides the fact that Grossman wrote the original story (he died in 1964 after falling from favour when he submitted "Life And Fate" for publication in 1960), the ambivalence between her roles as agent of the Revolution and mother of her child would have been more than the Soviet censors could have tolerated.

This is one of the most moving war films that I have ever seen.