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‘Two Prosecutors' Review: Sergei Loznitsa Explores the Stifling Climate of Stalin-Era Russia in a Legal Drama That Burns Slowly but Brightly
You don't need to wield a hammer and sickle to feel the weight of Soviet tyranny hanging over Two Prosecutors, a solemn Stalin-era drama from Sergei Loznitsa that doubles as a metaphor for the kind of oppression tormenting Russia right now. Impeccably directed and impressively acted, this slow-burn story of political injustice is filled to the brim with atmosphere — specifically the stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere of the U.S.S.R. at the height of Stalin's Great Purge. For those familiar with that period, nothing in the movie, which was adapted from a 1969 book by physicist and gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, may seem surprising. But this Cannes competition entry is more about the journey than the destination, revealing what it was like to live at a time when personal freedom was all but extinguished by rampant authoritarianism. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' Review: Tom Cruise Delivers but the Convoluted Eighth Entry Takes Its Sweet Time Getting There Nude and "Voluminous" Cannes Red Carpet Looks From Past Years That Would Violate New Dress Code David Lynch's Son Intros 'Welcome to Lynchland' Doc in Cannes: "This Festival Meant a Lot to My Dad" The first shot of the film is of a prison door opening and closing, and it's a clear prelude to the rest of what happens in Loznitsa's meticulously crafted narrative. Lensed by Oleg Mutu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) in the box-like 1:1.33 format, the movie was photographed in color but may as well have been made in black-and-white, so much does it depict a world without warmth or hope. Loznitsa is certainly no stranger to such backdrops, exploring the bleaker sides of both Russia and his native Ukraine in a body of work that has seamlessly shifted between fiction (My Joy, In the Fog, Donbass) and documentary (Maidan, The Event, Babi Yar. Context). Two Prosecutors is perhaps his most austere film to date — controlled as tightly as the NKVD (Stalin's secret police of the 1930s and 40s) controlled the Soviet people. It's not always an easy sit, creeping along as it moves from one suffocating situation to another. But it gradually builds into a powerful statement on Russian tyranny both then and now. A slow-burn opening shows prisoners being assembled in a courtyard. The year is 1937 and the men all look like they've been through hell. (Indeed, in the next scene one of them falls off a scaffolding and drops dead, his body quickly hauled away.) The oldest among them (Ivgeny Terletsky) is sent alone to a cell, where he's tasked with burning the letters of fellow inmates. In what will be the first of many acts of courage against the powers-that-be, he decides to save one letter in which a prisoner claims he's been unfairly jailed and asks for legal counsel. The sequence is telling, underscoring the sheer impossibility of justice within a system that has been designed to quash resistance at all levels, from the very bottom to the top. This is the trajectory the film itself takes, gradually following the effects of that one authority-defying act from the bowels of a provincial prison all the way to one of the highest offices in Moscow. Our guide through the crushing bureaucracy is a bold young prosecutor named Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov), who receives the smuggled letter and shows up at the prison to deal with the situation. He faces hostility every step of the way, from an array of brutish guards to a dismissive warden (Vytautas Kaniusonis) who keeps trying to get rid of him, and finally to the U.S.S.R's general prosecutor (Anatoli Beliy), who receives him in his office after the longest wait of all time. What's fascinating about Two Prosecutors is that nobody directly turns down Kornev, nor do they ever let him know what they're really thinking. This is a world where everyone is so afraid that the slightest word or act could land them in jail, or possibly Siberia, that they're constantly holding their tongues as they try to strategize their way through the system. New to the game of 4D Soviet chess under Stalin's reign of terror, Kornev is the only person to truly speak his mind, and it's no surprise what winds up happening to him as a result. The irony is that Kornev thinks he's saving the very Marxist revolution that the U.S.S.R. is meant to embody. The inmate who wrote the letter, Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko), is an old Bolshevik worker who was part of the 1917 uprising and has spent years in prison being tortured without reason. By trying to take a revolutionary hero's case to the highest echelons of power, Kornev foolishly believes he's fighting corruption in the regime he's meant to serve. The compelling Kuznetsov portrays the prosecutor as a wise and stubborn lawyer who's also the last person to be in on the joke that was Communism under Stalin. This is most apparent in a late sequence — and probably the highlight of the movie — in which Kornev takes the train back from Moscow to his hometown of Briansk, riding along with two businessmen (Valentin Novopolskij, Dmitrij Denisiuk) who he suspects could be NKVD agents. After some hesitation, he decides to drink and be merry with them, enjoying an impromptu music performance as the train chugs along through the night, unaware of the fate already in store for him. Loznitsa is much less of a dupe than the naïve young Korvev, and the director ultimately leaves the viewer back at the same prison door where his film began. The journey in Two Prosecutors is therefore a circular one — a long and winding round-trip between a rock and a hard place. This is what life was like in the U.S.S.R. at that time, and it's no secret that life in Russia under Vladimir Putin is hardly different nowadays. Loznitsa is reflecting on the past here, but for anyone who cares to look, he's holding a mirror up to the present. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
German Works by Fatih Akin, Mascha Schilinski, Christian Petzold Unspool in Cannes, Animation Set for Major Market Showcase
German films and co-productions in Cannes this year are sure to entice festgoers and buyers alike with an eclectic selection heavy on historical drama and animation fare. Highly anticipated works by Fatih Akin, Mascha Schilinski and Christian Petzold are premiering at the festival along with German co-productions from Wes Anderson, Sergei Loznitsa and Kirill Serebrennikov that explore postwar Germany, lives intertwined through time, loss and grief, international espionage, Stalin's Great Purge and a war criminal's escape from justice. More from Variety Wes Anderson Mocks Trump's Movie Tariffs at Cannes: 'Can You Hold Up the Movie in Customs? It Doesn't Ship That Way' Wes Anderson Powers Satyajit Ray's 'Aranyer Din Ratri' Rescue for Cannes Classics Wes Anderson Delights Cannes as 'Phoenician Scheme' Lands 6.5-Minute Standing Ovation, Leading Lady Mia Threapleton Overcome With Tears Unspooling in Cannes Premiere, Akin's 'Amrum' is a family drama set in 1945 on the titular North Sea German island and based on the autobiographical novel of screenwriter Hark Bohm, who also penned the script. It centers on 12-year-old Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck), who does everything he can to help his mother feed the family during the last days of the war, only to face all new challenges when peace finally arrives. The Beta Cinema title also stars Diane Kruger, Laura Tonke, Lisa Hagmeister, Detlev Buck and Matthias Schweighöfer. ''Amrum' is a very special project: it combines Hark Bohm's personal story with Fatih Akin's signature style and brings a piece of Schleswig-Holstein to the Croisette,' noted Helge Albers, CEO of regional funder MOIN, which supported the pic. Vying for the Golden Palm, Schilinski's sophomore work, 'Sound of Falling,' produced by Studio Zentral and handled internationally by MK2 Films, tells the story of four women from different time periods who spend their youth on the same farmstead and whose lives are eerily intertwined. Petzold's 'Miroirs No. 3,' sold by The Match Factory, screens in Directors' Fortnight and marks the director's fourth collaboration with Paula Beer, who plays a music student struggling with the sudden loss of her boyfriend and the mysterious family who offers her assistance. Anderson's U.S.-German co-production 'The Phoenician Scheme,' co-produced by and shot at Studio Babelsberg near Berlin, also premieres in competition. Boasting an all-star cast, the period film stars Benicio del Toro as a European business magnate facing major international challenges to his ambitious infrastructure project in the fictional West Asian nation of Phoenicia. Focus Features is distributing the film globally. Likewise in competition is Loznitsa's 1937-set 'Two Prosecutors,' whose producers include Leipzig-based LOOKSfilm. The Coproduction Office title follows an idealistic young Soviet prosecutor who comes across a letter written by a prisoner. Believing the man to be a victim of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) — at the time, the Soviet Union's dreaded interior ministry and secret police — the prosecutor embarks on a dangerous journey in the pursuit of justice in Stalin's USSR. Serebrennikov's 'The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,' based on the novel by Olivier Guez and co-produced by Berlin-base Lupa Film, screens in Cannes Premiere, with Kinology handling international sales. German actor August Diehl stars as the notorious Nazi doctor who, as a fugitive, flees to South America following World War II, eluding capture for his crimes. Also vying for the Golden Palm are Joachim Trier's Scandinavian drama 'Sentimental Value,' which counts Berlin-based Komplizen Film among its co-producers; and Kleber Mendonça Filho's historical thriller 'The Secret Agent,' set in 1977 Brazil and starring Wagner Moura and Udo Kier and co-produced by Berlin's One Two Films. Other competition titles with German co-producers include Carla Simón's Spanish drama 'Romería' (Ventall Cinema); 'La petite dernière' by French filmmaker Hafsia Herzi (Katuh Studio); and Tarik Saleh's Egyptian drama 'Eagles of the Republic' (Films Boutique). German producers likewise backed a number of Un Certain Regard selections, including Morad Mostafa's Cairo-set 'Aisha Can't Fly' (Mayana Film); Francesco Sossai's Italian drama 'The Last One for the Road' (Maze Pictures) and Diego Céspedes' 1980s-set Chilean tale 'The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo' (Weydemann Bros.). Also unspooling in the sidebar is Arab and Tarzan Nasser's 'Once Upon a Time in Gaza,' which counts Hamburg companies Riva Filmproduktion and Red Balloon among its co-producers. The film follows on from the Nasser brothers' festival hit 'Gaza mon Amour.' This year's Cannes Film Market, meanwhile, boasts German comedy, family, drama, documentary and animated fare. Picture Tree Intl. (PTI) is presenting Simon Verhoeven's 'Old White Man' from Wiedemann & Berg and Sentana Filmproduktion. The comedy stars Jan Josef Liefers as advertising manager Heinz, who sets out to prove he's no old white man with a carefully orchestrated dinner party intended to secure a promotion but that instead turns into a minefield of political correctness, awkward revelations and unexpected chaos. PTI is also screening 'Prank,' a family adventure-comedy directed by Benjamin Heisenberg ('The Robber'), who co-wrote the script with Peer Klehmet ('The Famous Five'). Produced by Berlin-based Kundschafter Film and Zurich's Tellfilm, the film follows 12-year-old Chinese exchange student Xi Zhou (Max Zheng), whose seemingly innocent April Fool's prank spirals out of control and drags his host family, their son Lucas (Noèl Gabriel Kipp) and his crush Charly (Maïmouna Rudolph-Mbacké) into a tumultuous adventure. Among the titles presented by Pluto Film are two award-winning German works: Julia Lemke and Anna Koch's Berlinale documentary 'Circusboy,' about 11-year-old Santino, a child of the circus; and Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay's film crew thriller 'Hysteria,' which won the European Cinema Label in Berlin. The Playmaker Munich offers Christina Tournatzès' 'Karla,' based on a true story, about a 12-year-old girl who, in 1962 Munich, files a complaint against her own father, seeking protection from years of abuse. The company also presents Viktor Jakovleski and Nikias Chryssos' 'Rave On,' which follows Kosmo, a reclusive music producer who tries to deliver his latest record to a legendary DJ playing in Berlin's most notorious techno club, but what begins as a simple mission soon derails into an existential rave odyssey. Aaron Altaras and Klemens Schick star. Likewise in The Playmaker lineup is Norbert Lechner's 'The Secret Floor,' in which 12-year-old Karli, newly arrived in the Alps, where his parents have acquired a hotel, discovers he can travel back in time in the building's old elevator – to the year 1938. There he befriends lively Jewish girl Hannah and shoeshiner Georg and witnesses the rising menace of the Third Reich. Family entertainment specialist Studio 100, meanwhile, is showcasing a slew of animation productions: 'Heidi – Rescue of the Lynx,' by Tobias Schwarz and Aizea Roca and set for release this year, follows the spirited 8-year-old Swiss heroine who lives in the Alps with her gruff but loving grandfather. After rescuing an injured lynx cub, she uncovers a dastardly plot by a sly industrialist that threatens her beloved home and the entire alpine ecosystem. In 'Arnie & Barney,' by Sean Heuston and set for delivery in 2026, an ant platoon tries to save their community during a severe drought. Not cut out for heroics, inept ant soldiers Arnie and Barney decide to tackle the problem by themselves, inadvertently becoming the most unlikely of heroes in the process. 'Conni – Mystery of the Crane,' by Dirk Hampel, follows a young girl and her friends who help a hurt crane recover from his injuries in the hope that he can fly south with his flock. Currenty in production, the film is also set for delivery in 2026. In Rob Sprackling and Raúl Garcia's 'Flamingo Flamenco,' a dancing flamingo named Rosie is left traumatized after losing her sister to an attack by wild dogs. A shadow of her former self, the grieving Rosie has also lost the joy of dance – until she meets Carlos, a carefree and exuberant lizard who encourages her to dance once more. Currently in production, 'Flamingo Flamenco' is set for release in 2027. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
