Dear Comrades!

Konchalovsky builds a look at communism from the silent accomplices, those who know nothing or want to know nothing. This social brainwashing causes the protagonist to long for Stalin, even though she faces the horrors of the KGB. The film has a frenetic pace, of constant dynamism, although in this case the 4: 3 screen, and its unbalanced frames, does not seem the best format for the story. There is a casual look that however does not hide the drama of the story.

A woman who has staunchly devoted herself to building a Communist state in Russia in the 1960s is forced into a moral reckoning when the conflict between her ideology and those rebelling against it gets personal.

Yuliya Vysotskaya delivers a taut, sensational performance as Lyuda, a woman whose daughter is among those missing after a deadly riot at a factory. Suddenly, big picture ideals and abstract ambitions collapse around her and her entire life becomes laser focused on finding out whether or not her daughter is still alive. To an American audience watching this movie in 2021, it is impossible not to see our own cultural dilemma reflected, not necessarily in the specifics, but rather in the general attitudes. The Soviet Union of 1962 looks a lot like the United States now, with different factions of our country wanting completely opposite things and determined not to budge an inch.

"Dear Comrades!" has a lean spareness to it that I liked. It feels like hardly a frame is wasted, and it's all captured in striking black and white.

Grade: A-

Gripping portrayal of the bloody downthrow of the 1962 workers' uprise in Novocherkassk, told through the eyes of a convinced Soviet member of local government whose daughter goes missing after the incident that the KGB makes a government secret and seals off the city. Beautifully shot in black and white, with unusual camera perspectives, picture compositions and orchestrated movement within the frame. Excellent performance by the main actress and very skillful directing. Moving dramaturgy, despite a seeming gap in the middle and a relatively open ending, which give room for interpretation and pondering. Very worthwhile cinema.

I kept thinking of our current times and how events such as happened in Novocherkaask could happen here. In the film a wildcat strike by workers is dismissed by local party officials until it gets out of hand when the workers take control of the factory. The regional government then steps in and is also ineffectual so the army and KGB are called in which eventually leads to a massacre. Poignantly told from the perspective of of loyal party official who receives assistance from a sympathetic KGB official in trying to find her missing daughter in the midst of a town under siege. Well worth watching from both a historical and from a gripping dramatic presentation.

The sight of massed workers marching against the Soviet government demanding MORE Communism may strike many as strange, yet it is just one of the many seeming contradictions here. Director and Co-Writer Andrey Konchalovskiy (RUNAWAY TRAIN, INNER CIRCLE) has fashioned his tale (with Elena Kiseleva) out of a tragic 1962 incident where factory workers were shot at by government officials leaving at least 26 dead.

Lyuda (Yuliya Vysotskaya; the Director's wife) is a committee member for the town of Novocherkassk. As an apparatchik, she eats and drinks better than those she serves. When we first see her she's in the midst of an affair with a married official. Her daughter is an agitator at the factory in question. And, her father hasn't lived down his anti-government views from his youth. Lyuda is clearly supposed to represent the many hypocrisies of the Soviet system. When the fateful day occurs, Lyuda is caught in the middle of the literal crossfire.

Konchalovsky builds his movie slowly. The details of the bureaucracy are laid out as are the intertwined loyalties which abound. The truth is both impossible to discern, but, seemingly frowned up. Andrey Naydenov shoots brilliantly in stark Black & White and framed in classic 1:37 aspect ratio. There is no musical score, only traditional Soviet music, often propaganda heard in the background. Even with this bleak style Konchalovsky manages to finagle a underlying streak of bitter humor. Chairman Nikita Khrushchev's policies were so unpopular that many Soviets were pining for a return of genocidal former leader Joseph Stalin. Just over two years after the massacre, Khrushchev would himself be forced out of office. No matter how much the events effect her personally, Lyuda is both a true believer and a blind loyalist - and, can't distinguish the two. Vysotskaya's performance superbly navigates her character's (and that of her country) paradoxes with skill and vigor. As does DEAR COMRADES! Itself.