Dear Comrades!

Dear Comrades! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy. Cast: Yuliya Vysotskaya, Vladislav Komarov, Andrey Gusev 

I have to confess I didn’t really know anything about this story and I am left speechless that something like this could have happened 1962… but then again it’s Russia, so it shouldn’t really surprise me much.

Filmed in black and white, which enhances the feeling of realism, the film tells of the cover up a massacre of a group of workers from the small industrial town who had been striking for the rise of food price by the communist government. The film is meticulous in its account of this shameful event, just as meticulous was the actual cover up by the state and the KGB (there are scenes of people being forced to sign ‘forms’ where they swear to keep the secret of what happened, workmen re-cementing the streets to cover the stains of blood, all with the intent to make sure the news of the massacre will never leave the town).

The event has remained classified for 30 years until some papers were finally released in 1992.

It’s all seen through the eyes of Lyuda, a woman from the Communist party with very strong Soviet beliefs and ideologies, whose daughter now got involved in the rebellion and has disappeared after the the soldiers opened fired on the innocent strikers.

The success of the film is how it mixes historical accuracy, almost like a documentary and the more dramatic story around the Lyuda, who now has to negotiate the bureaucracy she’s helped to create in order to find the body of her daughter. It’s a shocking story and yet bizarrely there’s even space for some weird cold black humour played straight, almost deadpan which makes it all even more absurd and chilling.

Available in the UK on streaming on the Curzon Website.