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Dear Comrades! Movie Review

Dear Comrades! is a 2020 Russian historical drama film directed by Andrei Konchalovsky and starring Julia Vysotskaya. It’s a very dark, important period piece.

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“What am I supposed to believe in,

if not communism?“

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In 1962, workers from a small industrial town go on strike when the communist government raises food prices. What eventually happened was the Novocherkassk massacre where as many as thirty people or even more were killed just for protesting and the government went on to hide the bodies and the entire massacre from the public.

Before seeing this film, I have never heard of this event personally, which is why the movie is a very important history lesson that showcases the worst of the communist Soviet Union and the horrendous KGB. The movie’s at its best when it depicts the communist brainwashing, especially as it relates to the main character.

Lyuda’s arc elevates the whole affair. Otherwise, the movie would have been overly documentarian in approach, but her story is fantastic and it grounded the movie in a lot of honesty and conflicted emotion. That car scene where she finally broke down was heartbreaking. Seeing her grapple with her feelings and the realization that communism just might not be perfect made for a truly devastating sequence.

Julia Vysotskaya is terrific in the role. She played the protagonist with a lot of force and she sold the anger and the heartbreak brewing beneath her stupendously. I just wish the others were better developed. The daughter had one good scene, but that mysterious partner of Lyuda was, well, overly mysterious and underdeveloped. The movie risked becoming as cold and as one-note as the communist party itself at times.

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Technically speaking, Dear Comrades! soared as this very old-fashioned movie that was filmed in stark black-and-white photography that is particularly effective at transporting the cold, harsh reality of this time period in Russia. The movie is very honest at depicting the brutal reality without ever sugarcoating anything. The score is also good and the direction is strong, but the dialogue was a bit too obvious in certain stretches while the pacing was also super brisk in the first half, though the thriller elements were quite effective at conveying tension.

Dear Comrades! is not that well paced, overly obvious in certain moments and it risked becoming overly straightforward at first, but it was elevated by a very moving arc of the protagonist played superbly by Julia Vysotskaya who performed the woman’s conflicted emotions powerfully. The movie’s stark black-and-white photography is very effective and the third act is emotionally devastating. It’s an important look into the numerous horrors of Novocherkassk massacre and communist Russia at large.

My Rating – 4