The Commissar

Commissar Vavilova had to go through many transitions after she temporarily left the army to have her baby. She had to deal with the lack of control that she had. When she was leading her troops she seemingly had the final word on decisions. Contrastingly, Vailova had to be cared for by the Mahazannik family (especially while she was having her baby). She seemed to be afraid of not having control. After all, she did not have any control over her husband's death and she could not make her communist ideals a reality on her own.

Maria seemed to turn Vavilova back into a woman. At first, Commissar Vailova wore manly clothes, swore frequently, and was rather stoic. Maria taught her about child-bearing and helped her get in touch with her feminine side by making her see the joys of motherhood. Apparently, Maria's husband was much less 'subdued' than she was. Yefim was a man that spoke his mind and said things as he perceived them. He had no reservations about making comments that were unacceptable to society. In my opinion, an excellent example of this occured when Yefim challenged Vavilova's communist ideology when they were in the shelter hiding from the White Army. He made her realize that the 'truth' that she clung to desperately would probably never become a reality. This was further made apparent by the horrifying scene of the Mahazannik family being marched into a concentration camp.

The children seemed to highlight the folly of the adults. Apparently, when the three younger children attacked the oldest daughter they were symbolizing the pointless folly of the way that the Jews were persecuted in Russia. I found myself getting mad at the little kids because they took their 'games' much too far. Yefim shocked me by merely saying a few harsh words to the children and then going off on how somebody he knew - a relative I believe - had his head cut off by a scissors. In my opinion, the children illustrated how senseless the violence and persecution in Russia were. The young man playing with his gun in the beginning of the movie helped solidify my stance on this issue. People treated weapons as if they were toys in this movie (which they obviously are not).

Some of the imagery from The Commissar reminded me of the style Tarkovsky used in Mirror. Particularily, the dillusional dream that Klavdia had while she was having her baby. Horses galloping around without riders seemingly signified how so many people were lost in the fighting. Also, the horses were chaotic and uncontrolled in a way that was similar to the way Russia was chaotic and uncontrolled during the Bolshevik Revolution. The blind man that was helpessly walking around seemingly illustrated how the Bolshevik rebels were really more interested in self-preservation during the war than the philosophy of 'one for all and all for one'. The mad dash from the desert to the water further displayed that the soldiers had no interest in the well-being of each other at times.

This film challenged the possible perfection of communist society. Whereas Chapaev portrayed the beginnings of a utopian society with ideal communists The Commissar seemingly sought to display that people were flawed and that society would never become like one of the fairy-tales that Yefim was so fond of. This movie was probably banned in the 1960's because of the way in which a perfect Soviet society was shown to not be able to exist at any point. Perhaps the main message that I took away from The Commissar would be that people will never be equal and society can never be perfect because humans are not perfect.