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You
rialna
a
nurturing
balance
throughout the film.
To the director's credit,
there is incredible authentici-
ty to Commissar. The grand-
mother, played by Lyudmila
Volynkskaya, speaks Yiddish
throughout the film and
laments disasters in her
mamaloshen (mother-
tongue). All the actors play-
ing Jewish characters, even
the children and those in the
mass round-up scenes are cast
with this concern for realism.
This casting is not evident in
more recent eastern Euro-
pean productions like the
made for television movie,
The Wall which employed
humdreds of non-Semitic
looking extras for the depor-
tation scenes.
The scenes of the children
playing with one another are
very powerful and brutal. The
kids are mimicking the
adults and playing out the
cruel games committed by the
adults. For these Jewish
children their games reflect
the cruelty and harshness of
life in the Soviet Union.
It's not surprising that this
film was suppressed in the
late 1960s when the already
ambivalent Soviet policy on
Jews changed for the worse
because of the Six-Day War
and broken relationships
with Israel. The film's
positive Jewish portrayal was
just too strong to pass the
censors.
Askolodov's inclusion of
prophecy about the Holocaust
would also not be appreciated
in a country that never men-
tioned the word Jews on the
plaque commemorating the
Nazi massacres at Babi Var. It
is not surprising that the
Soviet poet Yevtushenko, who
first wrote about the Jewish
suffering during the
Holocaust in his poem, "Babi
Yar" had been a champion for
this film in the Soviet Union
and abroad. The film goes
even further than showing
scenes of the Holocaust
because Askolodov's
screenplay hints at Soviet
complicity with Nazi policies.
Commissar was finally
released last year during the
Moscow Film Festival when
the director embarrassed the
festival officials in showing it.
The film went on to win the
1988 Silver Bear award in
Berlin and is appearing at the
Jewish Film Festival in San
Francisco in July. Although it
is being seen commercially in
the States, the film has yet to
see wide release in the Soviet
Union.
"Commissar" will be shown
at the Detroit Film Theater at
the Detroit Institute of Arts at
7 and 9:30 p.m. Dec. 2 and 3.
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MAPLE/DRAKE BUILDING
with
TEDD E. BEAR PRODUCTIONS
presents
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AMERIO*1
C.ANCER
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II
Cyr. L MI ilmmI (toms fra ■ keir, lac
Starring Danny Gurwin
Directed by Edgar A. Guest III
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