The latest from the great Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa is a scalpel-precise tale of the horrors of totalitarian bureaucracy.
Adapted from a novel by Soviet writer/political prisoner Georgy Demidov and set in the Soviet Union in 1937, Two Prosecutors follows the attempts of an idealistic government-appointed prosecutor to expose the mistreatment of a dissident Bolshevik writer who has been jailed and tortured without evidence of wrongdoing. He soon realizes the lack of cause for the man's imprisonment isn’t unique under Stalin, and the young lawyer’s moral righteousness may be putting himself in danger. Constructed with a patient yet unmistakable sense of mounting dread, the film exposes how the minutiae of everyday enables fascism’s function. [118 min; drama; Russian and Ukrainian with English subtitles]
"What distinguishes Two Prosecutors is not its overall narrative trajectory (which reads more like a bitter cosmic joke than anything else) but rather how Loznitsa subtly colors in Kornyev’s journey through the halls of power." — Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
"This story of civic injustice isn’t just a great achievement by the director. It’s a cautionary tale about the repetition of tragic moments in history." — Patrice Witherspoon, Screen Rant
"Its great achievement is in the creation of a timeless nowhere that is both drawn from history and independent of it. That is the absurdist ideal." — Donald Clarke, The Irish Times
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