Douban Film yesterday removed the entry for Dear Comrade, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2020 and focuses on the events in Novocherkassk, the story of Lyudamila, a high-ranking Soviet Communist Party official, who searches for her missing daughter who was involved in a strike.
The film won the Special Jury Prize in the Main Competition at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, the Silver Hugo Award for Best Director in the International Competition at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival, and the 92nd National Society of Critics Award for Top Five Foreign Language Films of the Year.
In June 1962, the Soviet city of Novocherkassk is not quiet. Prices are rising, food is scarce, workers go on strike, and people take to the streets with Lenin’s statue and red flags painted with sickles and hammers to surround the city hall, where the proletariat, who are supposed to be the masters of society, want to reclaim their rights. Lyudamila Memina, a high-ranking Communist official who was deeply devoted to the Communist Party, hated all anti-Soviet views and was convinced that her work would create an ideal Communist society. During a strike at a local factory, she witnessed workers being shot at the behest of the government. Immediately afterwards, the government acted to try to cover up the massacre that took place by not allowing locals to reveal a single word of the event to others. Meanwhile, Ludamila realizes that her daughter, Sweetka, is also involved in the strike and has disappeared. Heartbroken, Ludamila sets out on a journey to find her daughter, while at the same time, the socialist world she believed in so strongly begins to fray.
Variety’s Los Angeles Times said of the film.
Dear Comrade” is a vivid look at the once-hidden New Cherkassk massacre, shot in black and white with a stark, sharp beauty and a square frame design that creates a strong sense of confinement. At the same time, the black and white images allow the viewer to explore the development and details of the story purely. There is no soundtrack, but the sound effects designed by Polina Volynkina are unusually infectious and coherent, rendering a cold emptiness and brutality. Despite the overall seriousness of the film, there is also a sense of absurd humor, or rather a satire of absurd reality. In addition, the lead actress Julia Vistoskaja brilliantly portrays the heroine Ludamila Memina’s torn and conflicted feelings about her faith, as well as her deep love for her daughter. The film is still available on Baidu and other search sites, and its deletion by Douban should be a unilateral act.
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