The First Circle

The film "The First Circle" is an adaptation of the famous novel of the same title by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I myself come from Eastern Europe (Poland) and remember the times of communist dictatorship, so I liked the novel "The First Circle" very much. In my opinion, the film is not perfect and does not live up to the novel, but it is an important historical document of its era and is worth seeing. The problem of science that can serve authoritarian regimes and evil purposes is, after all, timeless. The film doesn't quite succeed in creating an authentic and claustrophobic atmosphere of the USSR, but the moral dilemmas are real. The international team of filmmakers can be considered a weakness that weakens the authenticity, but on the other hand, it is very interesting. For example, director Aleksander Ford is the author of the biggest hit in the history of Polish cinematography, "Knights of the Teutonic Order", and Elzbieta Czyzewska is a famous Polish star of the 1960s. They were both forced to leave Poland in 1968 as a result of a shameful and mindless campaign against Polish citizens of Jewish origin unleashed by the communist authorities, which brought irreparable losses to the country. For me, this fact gives the film "The First Circle" even more power as a protest against the authoritarian regime.