Courtesy of Cannes film fesitval
Sergei Loznitsa’s new film Two Prosecutors, showcased at Cannes, renders a chilling allegory of bureaucratic terror and moral collapse under Stalinism.
Drawing on the suppressed story of Soviet prisoner-dissident Georgy Demidov, the film depicts the creeping paranoia and inescapable dread of a system that turns its instruments of law into tools of terror.
The narrative follows Kornyev (played by Aleksandr Kuznetsov), a young state prosecutor who receives a horrific blood-written letter from a high-security inmate, Stepniak. The letter accuses the NKVD of judicial murder and systemic brutality — and sets Kornyev on a dangerous journey through prisons, corridors of power, and spectral encounters.
Loznitsa’s style is austere: long takes, static framing, minimal cuts. This disciplined approach magnifies the mounting unease, making the film feel like a slow burn into the machinery of state terror.
In Two Prosecutors, we witness not only the overt violence of a totalitarian regime but also the insidious erosion of human agency—how those who attempt to resist become swallowed by fear, suspicion, and institutional inertia.
Drawing on the suppressed story of Soviet prisoner-dissident Georgy Demidov, the film depicts the creeping paranoia and inescapable dread of a system that turns its instruments of law into tools of terror.
The narrative follows Kornyev (played by Aleksandr Kuznetsov), a young state prosecutor who receives a horrific blood-written letter from a high-security inmate, Stepniak. The letter accuses the NKVD of judicial murder and systemic brutality — and sets Kornyev on a dangerous journey through prisons, corridors of power, and spectral encounters.
Loznitsa’s style is austere: long takes, static framing, minimal cuts. This disciplined approach magnifies the mounting unease, making the film feel like a slow burn into the machinery of state terror.
In Two Prosecutors, we witness not only the overt violence of a totalitarian regime but also the insidious erosion of human agency—how those who attempt to resist become swallowed by fear, suspicion, and institutional inertia.