Dear Comrades! (2021)

There’s a line towards the end of Dear Comrades! (the exclamation mark is deliberate and important to the through line of the film) where Lyudmila, the central character and a staunch communist, questions how her town has fallen apart throughout the course of the film. It says everything about the state of the Soviet Union in 1962 when the film is set, that despite the fact that failing communism is so clearly the cause of Lyudmila’s desperate situation, she just cannot see it.

Such his her unquestionable faith in the system, that early on during the KGB massacre of Novocherkassk (unsurprisingly previously kept under wraps by the Soviet Union) her daughter goes missing and she claims that when she finds her she will hand her into the authorities herself. In 1962, workers from the small industrial town of Novocherkassk went on strike after the communist government raised food prices, Lyudmila’s daughter among them. The army is called in to deal with the situation, but more pertinently, KGB agents are amongst the crowd, as well as a sniper on a roof of the building. What follows is horrific, and the film is shot in beautiful black and white, with director Andrey Konchalovskiy capturing the authenticity of the period fantastically. Julia Vysotkaya is excellent in the central role as Lyudmila; you fully feel the frustration and terror of her situation, as well as her conflicting emotions with regards to her loyalty, her daughter or her party. Dear Comrades! is an exceptional portrayal of a little known Soviet atrocity, offering the viewer real insight into the way the communist party affected the Soviet people and their political factions within small towns, showing just how difficult it was for those in power of a town taking orders from the government and the military, and then themselves having to take the brunt of the public's disapproval with decisions. It’s a really impressive piece of work. 8.3/10