Commissar
by Aleksandr Askoldov
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DVD details
Actor: Lyudmila Volynskaya, Nonna Mordyukova, Raisa Nedashkovskaya, Rolan Bykov, Vasili ShukshinDirector: Aleksandr Askoldov
Brand: Kino International
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Italian (Subtitled); Russian (Subtitled); Russian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-06
Audience Rating: Unrated
Model: 4922
Studio: Kino Video
Product features:
- COMMISSAR KOMISSAR (DVD MOVIE)
DVD Reviews of Commissar
DVD Review: Unmissable, in THIS edition
Summary: 5 Stars
Komissar is a movie very dear to me. I watched this for the first time in my life in November 1989, in Romania. I was quite young, Ceaucescu had his last Communist Party Congress - he was to fall with a (literal) bang soon, in December 1989. I still remember how shocked I was that the Communist censors allowed this amazing anti-Communist movie into the cinemas... it must have been ignorance rather than courage.
This 1967 movie was banned during its own time, the director Askoldov never made a movie again, his very life was in danger for a while. Even as late as 1987, in full-blown perestroika, he had troubles to get his movie out of the censors' hands. Finally he could do it, and the movie was a triumph with international critics and audiences.
If you believe this is an obsolete, half-boring movie, the main quality of which would be that it was courageous for its own time, think again. This is a poetic masterpiece which endures fantastically well the test of time. If you only like American movies, avoid this. If you're reasonably cultivated movies-wise, if you like Dreyer, Fellini, Carne, Kadar, and the like, by all means, do not allow yourselves to die before watching this movie. Askoldov, the director of one and only serious movie, is on the same level with the ones named above. Apologies for the apparently shrill sale pitch, but yes, this is a one-of-a-kind masterwork. It is deep, tragic, subtle, it deals with the ethics and chaos of war, without the gore nor the guts. I would place this movie on the same pedestal as I place Kadar's (also unique) The Shop on Main Street.
A few words about this particular edition, which made me throw the old, worn-out VHS tape to the garbage: it is extraordinary as well. Everything is ideal. (OK, the English translation could have been better, perhaps.) The transfer, both in its video and audio aspects (terrific soundtrack from a young Schnittke!!) made me experience this, on a plasma TV, like I was back in the cinema.
What was even more unexpectedly generous and good was the second DVD, containing special features. I have never seen, not even in my many beloved Criterion DVDs, such a generous, relevant, well-made bunch of interviews - with priceless historical context, contemporary documentation and the like. Watching the special features was almost as riveting as re-watching the movie itself.
Do not buy this in any other edition. This is cinema at its true best, offered in an ideal packaging.
More Commissar reviews:
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Description of Commissar
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