Sergei Loznitsa, “Two Prosecutors” (2025)
An earnest historical drama, based on a short novel by Soviet physicist / writer Georgy Demidov (1908 – 1987), this film sets out to portray the repressive and stifling culture that existed in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Josef Stalin in 1937, during the period of the Great Purge. A young Soviet prosecutor, Kornyev (Alexander Kuznetsov), newly graduated, comes across a letter written in blood smuggled out of prison in Bryansk. The letter tells of its writer’s imprisonment and torture by members of the local Bryansk branch of the NKVD, the interior ministry and secret police organisation at the time. As part of the local prosecutor’s office in Bryansk, Kornyev attends the prison and, after overcoming various obstacles and excuses put forth by the prison authorities, meets and interviews the man, Stepnyak (Alexander Filipenko), who wrote the letter. Stepnyak shows Kornyev his injuries from torture after refusing to make a false confession and begs Kornyev to tell Stalin or other members of the Politburo about the unlawful arrests and convictions of innocent people loyal to the Soviet Union by the NKVD. After leaving Stepnyak and the prison, while being watched by a senior prison official who then makes a phone call, Kornyev then travels to Moscow by train (where, while trying to sleep, he is constantly being woken up by a World War I veteran (Filipenko, again) entertaining other passengers with stories about meeting Lenin) to see the Procurator General. After making a rather tortuous journey through a government building and then having to wait long hours behind other people to see the Procurator General, Kornyev finally meets Vyshinsky (Anatoly Bely) who tells the young lawyer that he will need more evidence before the Procurator General’s office can open an inquiry into corruption at the NKVD Bryansk office. Kornyev then travels back to Bryansk where he meets with an unpleasant, though not entirely unexpected surprise.
The plot is very straightforward and uncomplicated but very long and drawn-out, so as to emphasise the highly bureaucratised and repressive nature of Soviet society in 1937. Kornyev becomes a rather idealistic (and idealised) character: his parents having both died, the lawyer becomes something of a saintly if naif figure navigating his way through a culture where people are passive and indifferent to the welfare of others because of the risks involved in helping those targeted by the police state. In such a society, social justice is impossible to come by and corruption is rife. The film is slow-paced with humiliation after humiliation heaped upon Kornyev – whether by the prison authorities, public officials or even ordinary people he meets on the train or passes in the government building – slowly, steadily and surely, until audiences are able to guess (before he does) that he has walked into a trap he cannot get out of.
The austere surroundings and the plain cinematography contrast with the increasingly absurdist trap that builds around Kornyev: meeting Stepnyak’s doppelganger on the train should have raised alarm bells for Kornyev but by the time he’s on the train to Moscow, the lawyer is too tired and sleepy to notice the soldier’s likeness to the prisoner. Might that senior prison official have been on the line to Stepnyak or his guards while Kornyev was leaving the prison? Little clues planted throughout the film that suggest spies pretending to be old school friends or strangers wanting directions give an impression of an invisible grip or net closing around Kornyev: the tension in the film arises from Kornyev apparently not knowing what may be happening around him while he doggedly pursues justice for Stepnyak. But what if the letter itself and the meeting with Stepnyak happen to be part of the trap?
The film does a decent job in showing how a police state can deceive citizens through traps similar to the one that ensnares Kornyev, though I suspect rather that viewers are meant to equate 1937-era Soviet society with current Russian society 90 years later. Mention of past Ukrainian nationalist (and mass murderer of Jewish people in Ukraine in the 1920s) Symon Petliura during Kornyev’s conversation with Stepnyak might suggest some sympathy for Petliura and other Ukrainian nationalists of Petliura’s generation from the filmmaker and his crew; if that is so, the credibility of events in “Two Prosecutors” is in doubt. It seems unbelievable anyway that even in Soviet times, a young lawyer might be led into a Kafkaesque trap set up just for him/her by the authorities, without any of those people taking that lawyer aside and warning of the personal dangers and risks involved. That Kornyev continues with his investigations despite the obstacles put in his way or the hints people are making might not only imply doggedness and determination – it also implies a certain blindness or even stupidity.
Reflecting on “Two Prosecutors” (a couple of days after seeing it), I now consider the film as anti-Russian propaganda: while the plot may be credible, the characters as portrayed appear very stereotyped. The ordinary people who are train passengers represent the masses as ignorant and simple-minded. Passers-by in the streets and buildings of Moscow are no more than human ants. Even Kornyev himself – young, wet behind the ears, an idealistic crusader – represents a type. The film aims at no more than portraying Soviet society (and by implication, current Russian society) as oppressive and authoritarian.