Yulia Melamed Captain Volkonogov has no heaven About a very important movie that doesn’t change history 02/21/2023, 09:08

The first story is amazing. In 2001, Joshua Oppenheimer came to Indonesia to shoot a film about plantation workers. A young director, Harvard graduate, descendant of Holocaust victims. Suffice it to say that he infiltrated far-right and racist American groups pretending to be the victim of aliens to describe what kind of boy he was and what he wanted to do for the sake of the movie. For another film about a woman who killed her son in the microwave, she bluntly bolted the rigid boundaries of a documentary, mixing fact and fiction. It was clear that she was destined to meet another person outside the frame. Less than three years until her fateful meeting with Werner Herzog.

In Indonesia, it took a day for Oppenheimer to realize that the movie he was making wasn’t really about that. What is the state of the plantation workers when every inch of Indonesian soil is like the shadow of Hamlet’s father, who cries out for vengeance and is polluted by the spilled blood of his brothers? By then, 35 years had passed since Indonesia endured two years of unprecedented mass repression, hundreds of thousands of people were accused of communist allegiances and sadistically angry throughout the country. All communists and Chinese were killed. (And cyclists).

The response to the era of terror in Indonesia was unusual, unlike other countries that remained silent and denied, denied and remained silent on similar events. The country was proud of its pressures.

Ordinary fascism was overjoyed with itself after 35 years – because the oppressors remained in power.

The absence of any trace of remorse among the executioners impressed Oppenheimer so much that he immediately began filming. The “emergency” lasted ten years. True masterpieces are just as many shots. Werner Herzog is producing the film. We’re all used to the emotional consensus about this couple: executioner-victim. Here everything was the opposite. If so, then Oppenheimer is back. He came up with an incredible movie. He forced his heroic executioners to make films about how they killed themselves, playing themselves and sometimes their victims. There, he groped for a hero with a glimmer of hope that he seemed ready to repent, and—precisely guessed. He eventually repented (extremely disgusting and physiologically withdrawn).

It was half the battle. How are we going to make the country repent now?

And do you know? These two scumbags, Herzog and Oppenheimer, forced the entire Indonesian public to watch the movie and begin to understand the events of 1965-66. Two scumbags, Oppenheimer (a doctor of art history) and Herzog (an uneducated man), who make movies out of everything Akhmatova couldn’t even imagine, for example how he ate his shoe, Herzog, who (in) the documentary (in) the Greek hall, in the Greek hall! ..) films in the role of true believers filmed alcoholics for a ruble and forced them to pray and look into the depths of the waters, as if in prayer. I won’t tell you how they promoted it, that’s another story. But the truth is, the movie has become the most talked about movie in Indonesian history. The film drove Europeans crazy and made them sympathize with the murderer. The movie received all the awards in the world.

The second story is incredible. Contrary to popular belief that Germany set an example for all in how to repent and beat the chest, the denazification processes did not go smoothly. Opinion polls from the late 1950s show that most West Germans still believe Hitler was a good leader.

The difference with Indonesia is simple. The Nazis lost power. I had to repent. Under pressure from the (strong) Western allies, Germany had to pay reparations to Israel – this, by the way, caused the strongest discontent among the Germans.

In general, West Germany literally “rejects the Holocaust”, while East Germany seems to recognize it, but cunningly turns away from it. There are no monuments in Berlin to inform about the responsibility of the Germans – all monuments say that the atrocities were committed by some Nazi capitalist – the direct opposite of us, the communists of Germany. No German feels a collective responsibility for himself.

Until the TV series starring Meryl Streep was aired.

A melodrama featuring fictional characters makes an incredible impact on a nation that has never been affected by the lawsuits. The series is watched by the whole country. Angry at how this was allowed (23,000 calls were recorded), the audience cut off their studio phones. Right-wing radicals are trying to blow up telecommunications towers to prevent the film from airing.

This was followed by the famous “historians debate” that splashed across the pages of newspapers. Intellectuals stepped in. The country followed the discussions of the intellectuals. The German Language Association notes that the word “Holocaust” is the word of the year.

So it looks like this is how it should be.

Yes, the public consensus ate up a lot of facts about the Holocaust, but somehow there was an understanding of his Nazi past.

The third story is magic. The story of a film about Varlam Aravidze, a collective dictator who is similar to all the dictators of the world, was shelved and then ended on all screens of the USSR. Perestroika ideologist Alexander Yakovlev said that the publication of this picture changed the political system. How Tengiz Abuladze’s film language could reach the whole country, even the darkest people, is a mystery. And how the whole country agreed with the thought of Tengiz Abuladze.

There are films in history in general that not only get all the awards, but also change the idea of ​​their own history in an entire nation. No fact, no cause has such power, no potential to initiate a public dialogue.

For this reason. The film “Captain Volkonogov fled” did not become such a film. Actually, that’s all.

No, not all.

They’re all humans as humans. They sit exactly on the priest, waiting for death. Some, on the contrary, fuss. And there are those who think: I am Shakespeare, I am Abuladze, I am Tarkovsky. I’m going to make a movie that will change the world. I’m going to make a movie about the Stalinist repressions, it will force us (country/people) to rethink our attitude towards the past, a public debate will start, I have to do it. This is how the writers of the movie Natasha Merkulova and Alexey Chupov feel.

The film was made with the support of the Ministry of Culture. But she never came out in the Russian rentals, although she managed to get the critics’ prize and the audience’s prize. It is now broadcast worldwide. But not in Russia. And it becomes the most discussed movie. But not at home. The paradox is so annoying. I have no idea what exactly does not please, but the movie is extremely important.

I’m a fan. I envy. Here are the actors who played their best roles. Decision-making managers…

The hero works in a department that practices great terror, such as the NKVD, but does not work in the NKVD. In fact, his favorite job is to torture and execute anyone suspected of infidelity. He’s half athlete, half circus, half criminal, half robot – the perfect gear for the printing press. For now. And so the Office begins to eat its own children, and the captain manages to shed tears. It turns out that, by accident, in the dead of night, he was drawn to the funeral of the murdered – The Office is catching random homeless for dirty work to cover their tracks with their hands. And so they dump the bodies in a mass grave, and then the captain recognizes his old comrade in his fight for purity of thought. The corpse of a comrade informs him that everything is already safe in hell. And the captain has a chance to go to heaven, for which you need to get at least one amnesty. The captain doesn’t exactly regret it. The repentance process does not go smoothly. It always goes rough. And everywhere. as said. It is clear that all his attempts are doomed to failure. Praying in roughly the same way as Claudius, he apologizes, of course in the same tones: “Forgive me, God, vile murder!” Even Claudius understands: “You can’t pray like that.” And here the hero, the fool, goes around and asks and asks about everything lazily, without feeling, hopelessly, that is – mechanically. Forgive this vile murder … Of course all the victims send him to hell.

Film critics who are not convinced of anything here, I inform you that this is how it should be. Repentance – it’s always like that under pressure. And it is almost always impossible, the summit is not taken in principle … I think it’s a perfect metaphor of repentance that never happens. And they take us (Captain Volkonogov) nowhere for you – a dead end, neither to heaven nor to rent …

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.