Osa Archivum Catalog

Chekist

Summary: Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad. What makes this film especially potent is the matter-of-fact manner its protagonists go about their grisly duties. Director Alexandr Rogozhkin doesn’t embellish or sensationalize the film’s countless executions in any way, which makes them all the more unnerving to watch. Rogozhkin is less effective in presenting the characters’ lives outside the killing chamber, where they tend to speak in political slogans rather than dialogue. The film is at its most potent in scenes of undiluted horror, and the way Rogozhkin presents the grotesquerie is intriguing, beginning with cutaways and then gradually adding detail until, by mid-film, the shootings are graphically and relentlessly portrayed in a near-montage of remorseless slaughter.

Item Type	Current Location	Call Number	Status	Shelving Location	Public Note
DVD-ROM	OSA Film Library	FL Record 1005	Available	-	-
Digital film	OSA Film Library	FL Record 1005 (HU_OSA_00002689.mp4)	Available		Access Copy, MP4 format