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THE COMMISSAR was shot in 1967, the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution and the
same year as the Six-Day War, in which the USSR armed and supported Arab countries against
Israel. The film’s trenchant examination of Soviet anti-Semitism and the personal side of political
struggle sat poorly with Russian censors and they forced director Aleksandr Askoldov to make
major changes from the outset. After making the film, Askoldov lost his job, was expelled from
the Communist Party, charged with social parasitism, exiled from Moscow and banned from
working on feature films for life. Actors Rolan Bykov and Nonna Mordyukova, major Soviet movie
stars, had to plead with the authorities to spare him of even bigger charges. In 1986, the time of
glasnost policies, the ‘Conflict Commission’ of the Soviet Film-makers Union recommended the re-
release of the movie followed by a plea from Askoldov at the Moscow Film Festival. When the
collapse of the Soviet regime was imminent, the film was reconstructed and finally released in
1988. Available for the first time on DVD, THE COMMISSAR assumes its overdue place as a
milestone of character-driven, visually poetic world cinema. |
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