SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

zachary-03373 The filmography of director Aleksandr Askoldov lists a single film, Commissar. After a single viewing of the film it is easy to assess why no further works exist from Askoldov. Commissar is an ambitious, gutsy, and subversive film. Askoldov had to have been cognizant of the imminent danger it posed against his young career. This (likely) awareness of the inevitability of personal ruin seemingly emboldened Askoldov to move far beyond apoliticism, which was relatively acceptable, to the unthinkable, open hostility. When trivially compared to Chapaev, the pinnacle of socialist realism thirty years prior, it is apparent just how indifferent and even spiteful Commissar is towards certain parts of Soviet society. Both films share the backdrop of the Russian Civil War; that is where the similarities end. Commissar not only avoids socialist realism in a time period supposedly ripe for the projection of Soviet heroism, it turns the idea on its head. While Chapaev embraces the breadth of the Soviet cause against the Whites, Commissar narrowly focuses on Klavdia Vavilova and the Jewish family that hosts her during her pregnancy. The fronts of each film are portrayed very differently. Chapaev embraces revolutionary romanticism. Impassioned speeches are given and camaraderie is instilled in the troops from the legendary figure himself. The only scene where Klavdia is shown with her unit, she essentially condemns a man to death. She is moody, heavy set, and emotionally withdrawn from her comrades. The defining difference, the one that provokes the comparison to begin with, is Commissar's complete inversion of socialist realism's journey of the hero. Instead of the spontaneous good-hearted hero being politically educated by a Communist figure, here the Communist figure undergoes a form of social education by simple, good-hearted peasants. Though Vavilova verbally recites the dogma of Communism throughout the film, we see how the tenderness Yefim and Maria introduce create intense internal conflict for Vavilova. The film suggests that war and the ideologies guiding them strip individuals of their inherit humanity. The family setting is an attempt at rehabilitation. Vavilova starts off talking about abortion and how she perceives her child as a parasite growing within her. Much later, after living among a loving family, she delivers her baby. In one of the most touching sequences of the film Vavilova paces around her room (as Maria puts, "…like a caged animal") carrying her baby and singing a lullaby. The duality of her character here, the callous (dutiful) commissar and the loving mother, is perfectly illustrated by Nonna Mordyukova's nuanced, complex performance. If the enlightenment of Communism is social construction, the film attempts to deconstruct, to reduce life to a simpler, more sincere form.

Holdenboy86 After watching a movie, "Tsirk", that featured Jewish actors executed, it was nice to see a more positive spirit towards the chosen people. The movie, which features a Red soldier go into hiding during Civil War to have a child, is noticeable for the sympathetic depiction of the Jewish family that takes her into their home. Likewise the female officer is at once a tough, professional, militant figure who naturally takes on maternal duties when she feels her child's life is in danger.Of all the scenes in the movie the one featuring the daughter on the swing stood out. We see these children being so cruel to her as she calls out for an absent mother, and we in the audience understand helplessness. The fact that it is drawn out so long only makes us want to comfort her more.A very real, painful movie that features an ending so shocking that I did not believe that it was really over.

hoobits A film on the same echelon as Kilmov's Come And See, Jancsó's The Red and The White, Shepitko's Ascent and the great Russian silents as well as the vanguard 60s cinema. This is one of those films where image and sound form a perfect marriage committing to screen an onslaught of ingenious, uproarious and emotional imagery marred with wonderful sound design and score, all strung together by ingenious editing. This is cinema.The story is one of a Red Army woman officer during the Russian civil war, who ends up pregnant and is forced to live with a Ukrainian Jewish family, who has been used and abused countless times by the red and the whites. This is a story of humans coming together and setting aside their differences and understanding each other amongst suffering and strife. It is a test of loyalty to one's self, one's family, one's country.Commissar was banned on its initial completion and writer/director Aleksandr Askoldov was kicked out of the Communist party and not allowed to work in the film business in any form again. It wasn't until 1988 that the ban was lifted and the soundtrack remastered/re-done along with a reconstruction of the picture, which was fairly intact. But not until now has it been wildly available so I really would urge anyone who enjoys Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Tarr or any of the before mentioned films to seek this one out. The US DVD from Kino is probably their best transfer yet; very pristine and sharp with no a lot of dirt or scratches, although it is from a PAL source so there are some ghosting effects on large movements, making the picture look simultaneously in slow mo and normal frame rate

gaperkins One of the reasons that Commissar was initially banned in the Soviet Union was the use of religious imagery in the film. One example of this is shortly after Vavilova, the Commissar, has her baby. She walks by a graveyard, and the Russian Orthodox crosses are prominently featured in the shot. This can be interpreted to mean that Vavilova was forced to carry the baby, which she initially considers a burden, in the same manner that Christ had to carry His cross. It could also symbolize the idea of a life cycle, where Vavilova just had a child and is then seen at the cemetery, where she is surrounded by death. Another instance where crosses appear in the film was when Vavilova, Yefim (the father of the Jewish family she is forced to stay with), and his family were boarding up the windows and doors to prepare for the White Army soldiers that were coming. In one shot, Yefim is nailing a beam across a window, perpendicular to another board which clearly makes the shape of a cross.The other major example of religion that can be found in the film is when Vavilova travels to the priest, and then to where the synagogue had been. She does this in order to have her baby baptized, or recognized in the Jewish religion. This would not have sat well with Soviet censors, seeing a strong female Commissar traveling in search of someone to baptize her child. I found this scene particularly moving because it seemed that Vavilova simply asked the priest for directions, and would rather have had her baby brought up to be Jewish. This shows the positive impact that Yefim and his family had on Vavilova during her stay.