Captain Volkonogov Escaped

Leningrad, 1938. Captain Fyodor Volkonogov works for the security service; his job is to take people in and get confessions. He is a good officer and his superiors are pleased. One day the service starts arresting its own men and he understands his turn has come. He runs. That same night a dead colleague appears to him and says: you are going to hell, and the only way out is for somebody to forgive you truly. Volkonogov takes names from the files in his hands and goes one by one to the relatives of the people he killed. Natalya Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov wrote and directed. Yura Borisov, Timofey Tribuntsev, Nikita Kukushkin and Aleksandr Yatsenko are in the cast. It is a Russian production. The film competed for the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice Film Festival and opened in Russia in 2022. It was made with the support of the Russian Ministry of Culture and the ministry's logo appears at the head of the credits. The matter it treats is forgiveness; the film shows that it is not something easily given and forces nobody to grant it. The costume and colour are not realistic; the uniforms are red and the spaces deliberately abstract. The narrative moves at the pace of a chase and gives no history lesson. The film tells it from the perpetrator's side and puts the viewer in an uncomfortable place. The colleague pursuing him is doing his own arithmetic as well. The ending gives no easy salvation. Its limit is tone; the narrative is harsh, the violence heavy, and the formal choices will put some viewers off. Who it is for: viewers who like historical thrillers and formal daring. Who it is not for: it is harsh, dark, and the ending bitter.