Commissar (film)

Commissar (Russian: Комиссар, romanized: Komissar) is a 1967 Soviet film directed by Aleksandr Askoldov. The film stars Nonna Mordyukova as Klavdiya Vavilova, a commissar in the Russian Civil War who falls pregnant and is made to live with the family of a poor Jewish blacksmith (Rolan Bykov).

Commissar
Film poster (1987)
Directed by	Aleksandr Askoldov
Written by	Aleksandr Askoldov
Based on	In the Town of Berdichev by Vasily Grossman Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
Starring	Nonna Mordyukova
Cinematography	Valery Ginzburg
Edited by	Natalya Loginova Svetlana Lyashinskaya Nina Vasilyeva
Music by	Alfred Schnittke
Production company	Gorky Film Studio
Release date	1967 (1967)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Askoldov based the film on In the Town of Berdychev, a short story by Vasily Grossman, as well as Isaac Babel's story cycle Red Cavalry. Upon its release, it was banned for 20 years, and only released fully in 1988. It won several awards.

Plot

During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), a female commissar of the Red Army cavalry Klavdia Vavilova finds herself pregnant. Until her child is born, she is forced to stay with the family of a poor Jewish blacksmith named Yefim Magazannik, his wife, mother-in-law, and six children. At first, both the Magazannik family and "Madame Vavilova", as they call her, are not enthusiastic about living under one roof, but soon they share their rationed food, make her civilian clothes, and help her with the delivery of her newborn son. Vavilova seemingly embraces motherhood, civilian life, and new friends.

Meanwhile, the frontline advances closer to the town and the Jews expect a pogrom by the White Army as the Red Army retreats. Vavilova attempts to console them with a Communist dream: "One day people will work in peace and harmony", but the dream is interrupted with a vision of the fate of the Jews in the coming world war. She rushes to the front to rejoin her army regiment, leaving her newborn behind.

Cast

• Nonna Mordyukova as commissar Klavdia Vavilova
• Rolan Bykov as Yefim Magazannik
• Lyudmila Volynskaya as Yefim's mother-in-law
• Vasily Shukshin as Kozyrev, regiment's commander
• Raisa Nedashkovskaya as Maria, Yefim's wife
• Otar Koberidze as Kirill, late lover of Klavdia
• Valery Ryzhakov as cadet

Production

The film was shot in the political climate of the Khrushchev Thaw, following the death of Stalin. The period is characterized by a loosening of political oppression and artistic censorship. From the outset of the production, Goskino censors forced the film director Aleksandr Askoldov to make major changes; 1967 was the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution and the events were to be presented in the Communist Party-mandated style of heroic realism.

Although the story is set in Berdychev, Askoldov chose to shoot the film in Kamianets-Podilskyi, with a few scenes shot in Tsuriupynsk.

The then-head of Goskino, Aleksei V. Romanov, privately informed Askoldov that the film could be released if the characters were changed from Jews to Tatars and the Holocaust sequence removed from the film; Askoldov refused to do so.

Analysis

Commissar features strong themes of feminism and motherhood in the backdrop of the Russian Civil War of 1918, and when completed was censored by the Soviet Union due to the subject topic being deemed: "a force that opposes the very essence of human existence, a phenomenon that destroys personal ties by causing alienation, despair, and uncertainty about the future." In effect the censors saw the subject content and focus too negative for a state mandated heroic realism style, as in the opening scene a singing Madonna is passed by a marching regiment that eclipses the sound of her singing with their march. For the censors at the time, to portray the revolution as anything other than a positive change in society was a dangerous risk. Commissar was the only film ever made by the director Aleksandr Askoldov, and it nearly had him arrested by the KGB.

In this opening it is clearly foreshadowed that there would be conflicting themes about motherhood and military service, and this is furthered by the protagonist’s internal struggle between her devotion to the Russian revolution and her devotion to her child. The positivity of the feminist themes are reinforced with the witticisms of the Magazannik family, who have six children, and are more concerned with the wellbeing of their family than with the war. This is best conveyed in a scene where Yefim Magazannik (the father of the family and a local blacksmith) responds to an anecdote by Vavilova about the ideal of the soviet utopia where all men are equal in work with "but what about life?" Though the ending of the film features Klavdia Vavilova fleeing the Jewish household and her newborn son, this is due to the state-mandated style of heroic realism in film eclipsing the themes inherent to the overall work. Vavilova leaving may also be influenced by the children's favorite game, portraying the White Army hunting Jews. Immediately prior to Vavilova deciding to leave, there is a particularly brutal scene where the male children chase and bind their sister, ripping her clothes as she calls out for her mother. Their father reprimands them harshly, but Vavilova appears greatly troubled by the event and may feel a responsibility to prevent this type of brutality.

Vavilova is characterized as unquestionably manly, a 1988 film review done by James Lardner calling her "an inconveniently pregnant Bolshevik [and] a tough cookie". She is first introduced to viewers as a hardened military commissar, having just sentenced a soldier to death for going AWOL to visit his wife. She is respected by her commanding officer, which is made evident when Vavilova states that her deceased lover "was a good communist" to which her boss replies "you are all good communists". However once Vavilova relieves herself of her riding breeches and Mauser handgun, and is settled into the house of the Magazanniks, she falls out of favor with her once gracious coworkers. Once she embraces civilian life and the caveats that come with it, she seemingly loses her masculine qualities as her gun is replaced with her baby, and her leather pants are traded for civilian clothes made for her by the Magazanniks. Towards the end of the film, the frontline of the conflict begins to approach the town of Berdichev, and the Red Army begins retreating, Vavilova is left behind with rationed food. The Magazanniks worry that the coming shift of power there would bring another pogrom committed by the White Army, and Vavilova begins once again to abandon her motherly persona to relay the communist dream that all men will work in peace and harmony. The conflict inherent to the film being that while the revolution rages in the background, the true conflict is that between Vavilova’s treasured child and her patriotism and devotion to her job. In the end of the film Vavilova flees the home of the Magazanniks to attempt to rejoin her cavalry regiment at the front lines.

This complies with the film style of historic realism which acted to appeal to the masses of communist society, the protagonist acting selflessly, abandoning her child in order to join the forces attempting to save the village exemplifies this, and to a degree eclipses the feminist tone of the film in lieu of state mandated propagandist themes. Moreover, the transition from soldier-to-mother further reinforces the feminist tone of the film, as well as contributing to the thaw in Soviet dogma in the late fifties and sixties. In the journal Redressing the Commissar: Thaw Cinema Revises Soviet Structuring Myths, Andsell summarizes the lesson learned by the protagonist and the message conveyed by the director simply:

Askoldov symbolically depicts the Thaw’s search in his heroine’s journey of physical and psychological liberation facilitated by her new, small-family environment. The stages of Klavdia’s emotional and spiritual maturation in the film reverse the symbolic "progress toward consciousness" and the ritual initiation into the "big family" that shaped Stalin-era Civil War discourse, reappearing in the late Thaw quasi-Stalinist narratives. Askoldov’s inverted enactment of a conventional Stalinist rite of passage shows Klavdia undergo its three main phases: separation from previous environment, transition to a new system of values and incorporation into the new community.

Socially, the film retrospectively propagates a feminine pride in the socialist ideal, as Vavilova is presented as an independent and powerful woman who initially is seemingly unfazed by the death of her lover. She is more inconvenienced by her pregnancy, and is eager to go back into the fray of the Revolution. At the time of the Revolution, a major principle of the initial communist party was the freedom from discrimination based on religion and gender, and suffrage for women.

Influences

The film is based on Vasily Grossman's short story In The Town of Berdychev (Russian: В городе Бердычеве), although material from Isaac Babel's story cycle Red Cavalry was also added to the film. Vavilova's lover is named Kirill and wears glasses, a possible reference to the narrator of Red Cavalry, Kirill Lyutov. Efim Magazannik, meanwhile, takes inspiration from another character in Red Cavalry, Gedali.

Bykov's depiction of Efim Magazannik has been compared to Solomon Mikhoels' role in the 1925 Soviet silent film Jewish Luck.

Depiction of Jews

Askoldov himself was born to a Jewish father and sheltered by a Jewish family after the arrest of his parents. The family was killed in Babi Yar, and Askoldov stated in an interview that he made the film as a tribute to that family. Scholar Denise J. Youngblood calls Commissar the first Russian film in which Jewish characters have major, sympathetic roles.

Askoldov made significant changes to Grossman's short story. The main Jewish characters of the short story, Khaim-Abram Leibovich and Beila, are given more "gentile" names, Efim and Maria, in the film. Askoldov additionally added symbolism from the New Testament that did not exist in Grossman's short story — for instance, a scene where Efim washes Maria's feet, and many scenes with statues of the Madonna and beautiful churches and only one (ruined) synagogue. Historian Victoria Khiterer claims that in some instances, Askoldov made these changes so as to appeal to a gentile audience, and in the instance of the churches and ruined synagogue, intentionally suggests "the dominance of Christianity over Judaism, which lies in ruins". Additionally, she comments that the depiction of Jews is stereotypical and uncharacteristic of how Jews at the time would behave— although the Magazanniks are not described physically by Grossman, Askoldov makes Maria young and beautiful and Efim old, ugly and dirty, a stereotypical depiction of Jews found in prerevolutionary Russian literature; the Magazannik children play at "pogrom-makers" and choose their sister to be the "Jew" who is to be tortured and "killed", and the Jewish characters are indifferent to Jewish traditions or at times do things antithetical to Jewish tradition.

Askoldov struggled to find Jews willing to participate in the film — the Jews in Kamianets-Podilskyi refused to participate in the shooting of the film, so he searched in the city of Khotyn for Jews who were willing to shoot scenes. When the Jews there also refused to participate as extras in the film, he wrote to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, seeking Jewish extras; the Communist Party sent extras who reluctantly participated in the shooting of the film.

On 29 December 1967, at a meeting of Goskino, the decision to ban the film was made. The then-head of Goskino, Aleksei V. Romanov, stated that Jewish members of Goskino found the film, particularly Bykov's depiction of the Jewish protagonist, antisemitic. Khiterer suggests that the stereotypical depiction of Jews, as well as the depiction of Jews as passive, may have upset Jewish critics who watched the film.

Release

In July 1968, the film was banned, in spite of support for the film from directors such as Sergei Gerasimov and Mikhail Romm. Askoldov was charged with social parasitism and expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1986, Soviet authorities instructed Goskino to allow the film to be screened in the USSR and abroad, to let Askoldov make changes to the film that he deemed necessary and to permit Askoldov to work as a film director once more. However, certain directors who had opposed the film upon its initial release, such as Sergey Bondarchuk and Stanislav Rostotsky, as well as the head of Goskino Filipp Ermash opposed this decision and did not reverse the ban. However, Askoldov was permitted to work on the film once more.

At the 15th Moscow International Film Festival in 1987, director Elem Klimov, head of the Union of Soviet Cinematographers stated at a press conference on 9 July that all films that had previously been banned in the USSR were released. Askoldov, who was present at the press conference, took the microphone and informed the audience that Commissar was still banned. The next day, Mikhail Gorbachev met with Colombian Nobel Laureate for Literature Gabriel García Márquez, who had been in attendance at the press conference, and who asked him on behalf of the jury of the film festival to release the film. The day after, a surviving copy of the film was shown. In 1988, the film was restored entirely by Mosfilm and released.

Reception

In its first year of release, Commissar was watched by over 3,5 million viewers. The film won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival in 1988, four professional Nika Awards (1989), including one to composer Alfred Schnittke, and other awards. The film was selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 61st Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

See also

• List of submissions to the 61st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Soviet submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

External links

• Commisar at IMDb
• "Review," The New York Times, 1988.
• The case of Commissar at National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC)