Customer Reviews

The Chekist [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Historial accounts of the Russian revolution never dwelled on the common victim quite as much as The Chekist.In so much as to say, the young officer and his men sank to the lowest levels of human morality dealing out the new Order in mass murder while the more visible political front extoned the virtues of the so called collective peoples.Realizing his loss of humanity, the officer took the only route left to him in this new Order only to be swept away within it becoming a victim himself.

This is one of the most disturbing films ever made, and perhaps one of the greatest. It is the only film I have seen that gives an honest and unflinching portrayal of what a totalitarian dictatorship is like from the inside.

The Cheka was the embryonic KGB, organized on Lenin's orders under the command of a renegade Pole, Feliks Dzerzhinski. Its sole duty was to root out and annihilate counter-revolutionary activity by any means necessary. Overkill was not a problem.

"Chekist" illustrates how this was carried out in the simplest manner possible. The result is like a chapter of "Gulag Archipelago" brought to the screen, and is just as difficult to take. I can safely say that nine out of ten viewers will fail to get through the middle section, which consists of mass execution after mass execution to the point of hallucination. But this is the only way the story could have been told.

While a film like "The Chekist" is nearly beyond criticism, there are some flaws--a rather facile "Freudian" explanation for the main character's viciousness (I assume this would have been new to many Russian viewers) and an epilogue mocking the traditional "revolutionary romantic" view of the Cheka which may not be a failing at all.

I can't honestly recommend this picture--most viewers would not be able to endure it. But I will say this: the fact that it's out of circulation is a crime. And if you want to truly understand what the Century of Massacre was about, you need to see this film.

Considering that hollywood's attitude towards genocide is that it is only bad when committed by non-liberals, it is interesting and shameful that the best (0nly?) and most honest film about the communist genocide had to come out of Russia. This is a rough film yet informative. The viewer comes away with an understanding of Communism, the people who espouse it and why the logical result of Communism is genocide. This film is a masterpiece, a slap in the face to American film and a challenge.

This disturbing Russian drama shows the Bolshevik "revolution" for what it really was: a merciless and cruel counter-revolutionary coup d'etat by a group of egalitarian zealots who were willing to slaughter any enemy (real or imagined) who stood in their way. Lenin's Bolshevik regime was the 20th century's first totalitarian "terror-state," who's blueprint would be copied again and again by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. Many will be shaken by this film, as it shows mass execution after mass execution of innocent victims (Christians, workers, aristocrats, even Jews), who were forced to strip naked before being murdered in cold blood. The first reviewer was right - this film does shame Hollywood, who are constantly rubbing our noses in the evils of Fascism but completely ignore the bloody deeds committed by the Communists.

This film, which unfortunately has been out of distribution for a long time, is probably one of the hidden masterpieces of Russian cinema, produced shortly after the Soviet regime collapsed. The only way you can find it now is by trying to download it over a torrent (which may not have subtitles), or if you are lucky enough to spot a used copy.

This film is set in the years of the Russian civil war, when Lenin and Trotsky were in their primes and instituted the "red terror" (later to be refined by Stalin). Hard as it may be for a viewer to believe, this film actually spares you of the truly gut-wrenching brutality that went on in the Cheka - the insults, torture, death by dismemberment, etc. Yet the flavor that Rogozhkin provides with this film is more than most people can handle. You will see how the Cheka's main aim was not determining innocence or guilt, but the destruction of people belonging to certain 'classes', akin to how Hitler aimed to exterminate race. You will see the cold cynicism of the executioners, and how they rationalize their acts, or fail to rationalize and simply "are". As the Latvian chekist Ian Pepel says in the film, "Revolution, without philosophy".

Everything about the film, in my view, is well done - acting, cinematography, music. Although shot on a relatively low budget compared to western standards, Rogozhkin, like many Russian directors, did extraordinarily well in maximizing the experience. If you are a fan of Russian cinema and/or history, this is a must see.

I am a university student of Russian literature, language and history. I'd very much like to see this film, but haven't been able to track it down. Has anyone had luck getting their hands on a copy? I give it five stars because I was impressed with the descriptions I have read and heard.

This movie is to appeal to liberals and non-liberals. No one should believe that Carl Marx had this in mind when he wrote flamboyant, yet comically utopian Manifesto. By the same token, who in his right mind would call a country, in which 20% of its population isn't allowed to use public accommodations due to the excessive pigmentation of its skin, 'democratic'? Don't be fooled by labels created by people to their advantage. This movie illustrates how ends justify means, whether you wanna call it Communism, Inquisition, Crusade, National Socialism or Western Democracy.