The Commissar

The problems the Soviet Union might have had with the film The Commissar seemed rather apparent throughout the film. One of the more obvious reasons I felt it was kept out of the public eye was the Jewish situation. The Jewish family within the film may have caused a bit of a stir in the first place, due to the fact that Jewish sentiment at the time was a bit unsteady. Also, their suffering almost seemed to be caused by the Civil War, a time which was supposedly waged to end the people's suffering. Quite ironic.

The Commissar seemed to present a side of the Civil War that was not seen in films like Chapaev. In the film, the war was stripped of all its heroic trappings and left at what it was, a war.

However, I felt that the most controversial part of the film lay in the main character, Commissar Vavilova. For starters, she gets pregnant, and although when asked where her husband is, she claims he is dead, the film seems to imply that there never was a husband. It is highly unlikely that the Soviet Union desired one of its representatives to get pregnant out of wedlock, although not for religious reasons most likely. The act was probably looked down upon because it put her out of commision for serving the Red Army. She was no longer helping the Communist machine, but hindering it.

For me, Vavilova gave a terrible vibe, that truly made me dislike her. This might have been a cause for the censorship. She isn't an admirable heroe, and the film shows, yet again, the not so beautiful possiblities of a situation.

In the expert from "Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time", it was mentioned that Vavilova grew as a woman through her experience in Yefim's family, learning from his wife. I think the situation stands otherwise. Vavilova seems to love her baby as time goes on, she begins to wear dresses, performs house chores, but the ending of the film simply smashes any thought that she had been converted into a differnt woman. She leaves her child. She goes against every motherly instinct and abandons her child to go fight for the cause.

Perhaps the director thought that this would help his movie get on screen. The commissar realizes her purpose and goes to help the Red Army. But for me it felt like she had betrayed what mattered. It made me despise her character, and it didn't instill any love for her within me due to her loyalty to Russia. It might have been that the people who decided to shelve this film felt the same discomfort with Vavilova and decided that she wasn't the kind of person that should represent their government.