The Trial

In Moscow in 1930 a court is convened. The defendants are accused of sabotaging the Soviet economy and collaborating with foreign powers. Every one of them confesses in detail. None of what is described as a crime ever happened. The film is not interested in the trial. It is interested in the performance: it presents the official record of the Industrial Party trial as it is, and the audience watches memorised sentences, the prosecutor's prepared questions and the applause in the hall. Nobody lets on that they are acting, and that is where the horror sits. The form is entirely archival: footage of the period, no narrator, no commentary. Sergei Loznitsa arranges only the edit and the sound. He used the same method in films like The Event and Austerlitz; here the material is a state having recorded its own lie with its own cameras. Death sentences were passed at the end of the trial and later commuted; the recordings were used for years as instructional material. Who it is for: viewers curious about Soviet history and archival cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting context. The film explains nothing, plays nearly two hours of courtroom, and it is hard to keep track of who is who.